Jacob Franklin, Opinions Editor
Brendan Downes, News Editor
Executive Editor Lizzy Donker contributed to this story.
Ask a Sewanee student to name a daily source of frustration, and all too often, they’re likely to respond with two words: Residential Life. Based on The Purple’s experiences trying to cover issues important to Sewanee’s students, it is easy to identify a central issue –miscommunication. The Purple’s latest encounter with Res Life involved trying to get information for our readers about the probable impacts of the decision to close dorms Hunter and McCrady for renovations during the ‘24 – ‘25 academic year. These renovations, alongside the complications of Sewanee’s Residential Life Office using a different software for the housing selection process for the coming academic year, led The Purple to request an interview with Residential Life. However, our interview request was redirected to Dean Howard, Dean of Students. To compound what felt like the latest Res Life runaround, Dean Howard opted to email us instead of fielding questions and discussing student concerns, offering the following written response:
“There are still many decisions being made regarding housing renovations so we don’t have additional information to share at this point in time. However, as shared recently in the room selection process information, Hunter and McCrady are not visible in the StarRez portal for selection at this time given that we anticipate those halls being offline for work next academic year. Res Life works in partnership with many others on a project of this scale and we expect to have more information in the summer. It is an exciting project for Sewanee and we greatly appreciate your interest in learning more details.”
The Purple asked follow-up questions concerning the difficulties of adequately housing students when two dorm halls are closed and how the cost of the renovations project would affect students. We did not receive a response. The Purple again requested an interview with Residential Life later in the week, and received another email from Dean Howard, advising again that the renovation project is new and reiterating what we already knew – that Hunter and McCrady would not be visible as room options for students on the StarRez portal.
When The Purple requested a third opportunity to interview with Residential Life later in the week, we received slightly more information about the upcoming dorm renovations in yet another email from Dean Howard:
“There is not a lot of information yet available about the upcoming renovations since our previous email exchange. I can share that The University is in the early stages of the process to renovate Hunter and McCrady. The University is now in the process of selecting an architect. The focus of the design will be to modernize the dormitories, with an emphasis on enlarging room and bathroom spaces and climate control. A concrete timeline has not yet been set. However, the goal will be to have the renovated dorms back online in the Fall of 2026.”.
Renovating two entire dorms is no easy feat. Figuring out where all the students will live amid large renovations will no doubt take time and energy, not to mention many moving parts and complications outside of Residential Life’s control. Nonetheless, students have questions about how they might be affected by the loss of two dorms for housing. An email Dean Howard sent on April 9 addressed the chaos of the room draw process. However, this email, in which the dean wrote, “ You have likely heard from students there were issues…,.” – went only to faculty and staff – not to students. The lack of transparency is made more problematic by the sense among many students that Residential Life is nonresponsive, overly bureaucratic, and a major source of problems in their daily lives.
Open communication is critical to ensuring Sewanee’s Residential Life addresses the needs of Sewanee’s student body – which is its reason for being. Sewanee’s Student Government Association has been serving as a liaison between Sewanee students and Residential Life, distributing information about next year’s housing selection process via email. But SGA is not as involved in the plans for room draw and renovations, as those issues do not usually concern their organization. When the information students receive about the housing draw and renovations does not come directly from Residential Life, it appears as though Residential Life is avoiding difficult questions instead of being transparent with students, who, for all intents and purposes, serve as Residential Life’s customers.
This semester, Res Life made the switch to StarRez, a new housing selection platform, after previously using a software called THD. At noon on April 8, as seniors tried to select the suites they would be living in next academic year, they were met with a selection process that didn’t work. During the senior suite selection, any student logged on to the website was able to make a room selection regardless of their assigned selection time. This led Res Life to remove previously selected rooms, forcing students who thought they had landed a room to have to restart the whole process.
This came after the room draw had already been delayed by Res Life in preparation for students and Res Life employees using new software. And when Sewanee’s most senior students were finally allowed to try to land rooms, their moment was overshadowed by buggy software and an underprepared Res Life.
Additionally, the StarRez platform allowed only a limited number of students to be on the website at once. This led many students to have to visit the Res Life office in person.
Another point of controversy was StarRez’s “group leader” format. Within the new software, one roommate had to be designated as a group leader. The group leader is the only roommate who has the power to select a room and add a roommate to that room. This meant that the other roommate in a pair was prevented from selecting the room they would be living in––something the old signup system hadn’t required. This led to confusion from students. Students expressed concern that the roommate with the earliest room selection time was not automatically made the group leader. This confusion prevented some students from selecting the rooms they had planned on.
The Purple also confirmed that some proctors were assigned double rooms. For the sake of safety and as compensation for the job, proctors are usually guaranteed a single.
Res Life declined to comment for this article, but in a school-wide email sent on April 15th, Res Life addressed the high volume of complaints received from students. “Thank you to everyone who respected the spirit of EQB in this process when bringing their concerns forward. This process has not gone as smoothly as we had hoped or prepared; however, our staff is continuing to work to make sure all students receive an equal opportunity to select the room of their choice.”
That was little consolation to students like sophomore Jillian Hall (C’ 26), who spoke to The Purple about her negative experiences with Residential Life during the recent room selection process.
“When I first sent the initial email asking how to receive accommodations to get a single, due to anxiety induced through random selection of roommates, they [Residential Life] did not respond to the email,” Hall said. “I had attached the Dean, Diane Dekker, the accommodations office, my mom, and the head of Res Life, but Res Life never responded. The Dean and the accommodations office both responded. I had no word yet from Res Life.”
Hall said she kept emailing that she hadn’t gotten a signup time.
“I received automated messages, not receiving anything reassuring of time or of them actually understanding my problem,” Hall said. “When I went to the office, it was clearly a work-study student who told me to email Res Life after, and I was like, well I could’ve skipped this whole ordeal and went straight to emailing them, which didn’t help at all, so I was literally just left in the dark.”
Residential Life “could be better,” Hall said. “I feel like they have a foundation that could’ve worked, but they are so in the dark about how their own system works at the moment that they have really no understanding of how students can actually thrive in the environment that they’re creating with this new system. I believe Res Life needs improvements but they’re starting at the very bare minimum.”
Other students shared similar sentiments on YikYak:
“We need student-run Res Life.”.
“I’m a rising junior and still don’t know how [this] works.”
“Why have I not been assigned a time slot?”
“At what point do they just call it quits […] and go back to the housing portal? It was so much easier.”
“Just start from scratch at this point.”
Residential Life’s weak communication with Sewanee students, including with The Purple, is not a one-time occurrence. In fact, it’s not hard for us to spot a pattern. For example, in the spring of last year, there was contention when Proctors told The Purple that Residential Life had suddenly announced that they would have to stay on campus and do their usual dorm work over spring break. This unprecedented demand, along with Res Life’s denial that any such demand had been issued or would be enforced, prompted an extensive story headlined “Proctors’ Tensions With Res Life Worsen Over Spring Break,” written by current Executive Editor Lizzy Donker (C’ 26) Also last year, six Theme Houses were left blindsided when they were informed they would not be provided with houses, but instead, would have to relocate to residential halls. Former News Editor Meg Butler (C’ 24) detailed this story in her article, “Six Theme Houses Without A House Next Year.” Tension between Residential Life and Sewanee’s students is readily apparent as most recently as our last issue, when News Editor Brendan Downes (C’ 25) wrote an article detailing confusion over Residential Life’s selection process Theme Housing on campus. Then as of now, The Purple reached out to Residential Life for an interview about the Theme House representatives’ concerns but did not receive a response.
Residential Life’s reason for being is to provide housing for and ensure that issues involving Sewanee’s dorms are dealt with promptly and well. These responsibilities affect students’ daily lives, from when they wake up to when they fall asleep. Therefore, it is critical that Residential Life not only listens to students’ needs, but also takes action to address those needs and responds promptly and transparently to the campus community’s questions or concerns. The Purple hopes that Sewanee’s Residential Life Office will do better. If the miscommunication about the Hunter and McCrady renovations was only a one-time occurrence, this article would be entirely different. However, it is evident that Residential Life needs to consider the students’ voices, which are loud and clear: we need transparency from our Res Life office.