Change Proposal: Assignments for New and Returning Students

The University of Massachusetts Amherst provides living accommodations each year to approximately 10,000 undergraduate students. The University has 11,065 beds in 6,300 rooms throughout five residential areas. The University has 41 residence halls--the sixth largest housing operation of any American campus.

Incoming students are given information about housing options during the summer New Students Program orientation. Since the fall of 1997, most new student housing preference information has been collected via the web. Requests are sorted and prioritized based on roommate requests, special program requests, and other individual special requests (i.e. medical singles). Assignments to buildings are done randomly within each prioritized group, keeping in mind gender balance and area preference. This task is accomplished in the two weeks after the close of the New Students Program. Assignments are mailed during the first week of August, four weeks before the students' arrival.

When assignment information is relayed to new students, only the residence hall and roommate name, address and phone are given. In order to provide the Housing Assignments Office with more flexibility, students do not receive information on room specifics, phone number or their new address. A given room assignment may be changed before the student arrives as cancellations and other special requests are received from continuing students.

In addition to assignments for new students, Housing must also make assignments for returning students. Each summer approximately 6,000 returning students are assigned to rooms in the residence halls for the following fall semester.

The assignment process for returning students begins after spring break. Students may call into the Interactive Voice Response System (IVR) to reserve their same room for the next year. Students who do not wish to continue their current assignment make their rooms available for re-assignment.

During the month of April several additional processes are put into action. Students may select a different room in their current hall based on seniority points; students may submit a Room Change Request Form to apply for a different room type within the same building; students may submit a Housing Preference Form (HPF) for a lottery to move to a different building. Lotteries are run three times between April and August in order to maintain as much flexibility as possible for students. HPF's are accepted continually, and depending on the timing, they will be put aside for the next scheduled lottery.

The efforts of the Housing Assignment Office to satisfy student requests, up until the beginning of the new semester, have evolved into the highly complex-and often cumbersome-assignment process now in place. Because the process puts a high priority on responsiveness to student requests, students' shifting preferences put heavy demands on the staff.

Beginning in June, the Housing Assignments staff works continually on placing students into specific rooms, making adjustments as necessary. Assignments are tracked manually on color-coded floor plans, and manual updates are made regularly to keep floor plans current. All of these changes must be entered into files on the mainframe computer system. The Housing Assignments staff attempts to meet all requests, and because they are so accommodating, final assignments (without specific room number) are not mailed to returning students until the last week in August, approximately one week before Opening.

Managing a system of this complexity without sophisticated computer support is an enormously labor-intensive task. The peak work periods for the Housing Assignment office occur from April through August and again in December and January. During these periods, staff members work overtime hours to complete the necessary work.

Since PeopleSoft does not intend to produce a housing module, the University will most likely develop its own module. Existing packaged systems are either too small, or may require multiple modifications to meet the business requirements specified by Housing Services to fit the unique and complex needs of the Amherst campus.

In the new system, returning students will make their own room choices, within appropriate windows of opportunity defined by their seniority points. It is envisioned that students will log onto a housing assignments website and do their own "room shopping" from the available choices in real-time. Students will be able to view floor plans and learn more about their options. The process will also feature roommate-linking, enabling students to "shop" in pairs. Students will choose their rooms on-line and log off with a confirmed room assignment. Whereas the work of changing room assignments has been the responsibility of Housing Assignment staff in the past, students, rather than staff, will make transactions in the new system.

The new system will also benefit residence hall staff. Currently, residence directors have only limited student information available. With the new system, they will be able to check students in and out electronically, with far fewer paper forms. Further, they will have access to real-time information on room changes, information which is especially valuable in the early days of the semester.

Further, the new system should provide Housing Services with greater capacity to monitor and learn from the assignment process. The new system will be able to provide data on a number of key variables and enable creative approaches to maximizing housing options.

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