The Colby Echo

Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Opinions

It's that time of year again here at Colby: the time when the snow starts to thaw and we can enjoy the sprawling lawns on campus, the time when we are getting ready to make the last sprint toward summer and the time when the only conversation on campus has to do with room draw.

There is no way to make room draw trouble-free. As one person said sarcastically, "Room draw is just a public ranking of all your friends...What's so awkward about that?" But there are ways that I think room draw can be better, some of which the college is starting to do, and some of which it is not.

As an economics major, I have no problem saying that information solves all ills. Most of the models we study assume perfect information and the lack of such, called asymmetrical information, is seen as a major burden on economic efficiency. If there is perfect information, most economists agree, markets have a way of correcting themselves. The importance of information before room draw is no less.

A little over a week ago, I thought that room draw this year was going to be an absolute mess. Special interest room draw was scheduled to take place before the HRs were going to be announced. The HRs who planned to live in special interest housing if they did not get chosen would be choosing rooms. Many of the people the HRs were planning to pull in would get a room as well. This would mean that a number of people who would ultimately leave their rooms for others would get rooms at draw, meaning that many with low numbers would be left without rooms after the draw, needing to hope that enough rooms opened up. In addition, two days before the draw, the new chem.-free dorms were not announced and no one knew their lottery numbers, which meant that planning was very difficult.

Impressively, the Office of Campus Life listened to students' requests and put off room draw for more than a week. This is a big step in the right direction. That the Office of Campus Life was willing to adjust its plans deserves much commendation. At the risk of taking anything away from its decision, however, I think that it is important to learn from this year.

Students clearly like as much information as possible and many were quite worried when it appeared that they would not have this information well in advance of room draw. I think the question of whether more information can be given deserves attention. Although I will fully admit that I have little idea of how room draw works, I see no reason why, for instance, the quota rules couldn't be posted before draw. This way people could see not only how many singles, doubles, triples, and quads were in a dorm, but how many of each room were allocated to men and how many were allocated to women. In addition, people would be able to see how the quota system for year works inside each dorm, which as far as I can tell is not the case currently. Maybe this won't keep you from having to rank your friends, but at least it might let you come up with excuses.

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