The release of next year’s housing assignments Monday yielded mixed responses as students adjust to the new house model.
Under the Duke Houses process, rising sophomores and juniors who are unaffiliated with a selective living group were assigned to houses across West and Central campuses at random by Housing, Dining and Residence Life. These students were unable to preference between placement in a house located on Central Campus or West Campus. HDRL informed students of their house assignments and subsequent lottery numbers, which will be used to choose individual rooms within their designated houses in the coming weeks.
Prior to this year, students received randomly assigned lottery numbers and picked their rooms via Room Picks, an online room selection process that allowed students to choose—in the order of their lottery number—from available rooms across West and Central campuses.
Rising seniors underwent a housing assignment process similar to the old Room Picks process. These students were given a lottery number and picked from available rooms within each house during a given time slot.
Some students are satisfied with their placement under Duke Houses. Freshman Liza Katz, who will be living in a Central apartment on either Lewis Street or Yearby Avenue, said she was disappointed by her inability to indicate a preference for Central, though she is happy with her assignment.
“I wanted to be close to my friends in my sorority who are living in the house because I didn’t get in the house through the lottery system,” Katz said. “I thought it would be fun to have a kitchen and not live in a dorm.”
Linda Moiseenko, manager for Duke community housing, could not be reached for comment.
“This was a new system for everyone involved, both the students and our team, and I think through a lot of cooperative efforts, it was made to work very well,” said Joe Gonzalez, associate dean for residence life.
According to the Duke Houses website. houses are expected to have a target distribution of sophomores, juniors and seniors at 50 percent, 30 percent and 20 percent, respectively—increasing the likelihood from previous years that juniors and seniors can live on West. Under the house model, sophomores are also no longer guaranteed to live on West.
Sophomore Danish Husain said he was happy to receive his assignment in Kilgo Quadrangle for the second year in a row. Husain was concerned that, as an unaffiliated student, he would not receive ideal housing due to the new house model.
Sophomore Jeremy Chaikind, however, said the process was particularly stressful because he is unaffiliated. Chaikind will live in Edens Quadrangle, though he wanted an apartment on Central.
“The whole house model was supposed to provide independents with a community,” he said. “Most rising juniors are going to live with their house maybe one year and then live off campus.... I can’t imagine that it’s going to build a terrible amount of community.”
Hannah Ward, also an unaffiliated sophomore, said she felt uninformed about the nature of housing assignments under the new house model, particularly in the fact that she was unable to preference between Central and West campuses.
Students like Christina Smith, a sophomore and member of JAM!, said affiliation with a house likely made the process simpler.
“I was really apprehensive about the housing model because I felt like if I wasn’t in a [selective living group,] then I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. “Now that [housing] is worked out, I’m happy that I’ll be on Central next year.”
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