With specialty housing applications due last Tuesday, students are currently focusing the potential issues associated with specialty housing selection process. While some specialty housing dorms do not require an interview as part of the application, others do, which puts into question the fairness of the process.
When a student is applying for certain specialty housing, such as Knowlton or 360 Apartments, they must be interviewed before they are selected. An issue arises, however, because housefellows and floor governors conduct the interviews rather than non-student staff.
One student currently applying for 360 who wished to remain anonymous expressed her concern that friendships will have an impact and the people choosing will advocate for friends. She added that that could be helpful for applicants – if one knows people who work at Res-Ed.
She said, “Everyone knows everyone, so it is easy to have a connection with a housefellow or floor governor,” which can have either a negative or a positive result for the interviewee.
Despite the potential risks associated with student-conducted interviews, she still believes that there are advantages to having students play such an integral role in the system.
She said, “I think it’s good in some ways. So much is student-run, so this should be too,” adding, “If the floor governor or housefellow knows the person, they shouldn’t be the one to do the interview, but there is really no way for Res-Ed to know if people actually are telling the truth about that.”
One floor governor, however, countered these concerns. Sophomore Alicia Rea said that when conducting interviews she would only input her opinion if it was positive, not negative, and speak highly of students she believed would be appropriate for the housing, while not speaking negatively of those who she think would not.
“The only thing I’d advocate for is responsibility level, and I would support claims made in the essays,” said Rea. However, she added that not all floor governors and housefellows might feel or act in the same way.
She described the floor governors role in the interview process as reading applications before the interviews, comparing the applications and determining the best answers.
She also added that Res-Ed never, “explicitly told us how to act,” but that it seems to be assumed that students should act in support of people who they might know from previous experience to be well suited for the specialty housing.
When asked if she believed that students should conduct the interviews, Rea said, “Yes, we’re the ones who encounter people in our positions and have to take responsibility at a higher level. We’re involved more directly.”
She also added that she likes that it is student-run because, “We see students on weekends, the efforts they make to know people, and we have different interpretations than the staff. We’re valuable for our opinions.”
One anonymous student, however, who applied for Winchester Apartments last semester, thinks that although having student-run interview is good in theory, it has its flaws. “I think a lot of biases might come into play. Say a person has a bad perspective on a certain group, so they give bad feedback on them. But I mean, I guess you can’t blame them.”
Rea said that students should not be concerned with bias when applying for housing. She said that candidates should not be worried about the interview, but instead “make sure their argument for why they want to live in this type of housing is valid, and that they understand the responsibilities and expectations associated with specialty housing.”
