LETTER: Transfer students should not be denied on-campus housing
To the editor:
To those of you who matriculated as freshmen, think about how difficult it would be to live off campus your first year.
Last Monday, a housing petition was sent to 11 transfer college contacts.
These contacts asked students to sign a petition stating, "This is a petition for equal opportunity for housing for all new students."
The goals of the petition were to increase student and faculty awareness of the problems posed by transfer housing and to gather support for the cause.
The Rice Association of Transfer Students (RATS) started the petition to educate people of the problems transfers face when they matriculate and are forced to live off campus; however, not all students and administrators welcomed the petition.
The petition was not intended to jeopardize freshman housing, but to extend the privilege of priority freshman housing to all new students.
We decided not to include any definitive proposals with the petition because they were clearly not a part of the petition.
No confusion, hurt or ethical compromise was intended by RATS.
Like all Rice students, transfers know that housing is a serious, complex and emotional issue.
We realize that the petition, which has sparked controversy in some circles, may not have been the most effective way to address the problem. But we felt that in order to begin resolving the problem, student support is needed.
It is a fact that transfers have a divided experience at Rice, depending on whether they are on or off campus when they matriculate.
The few transfers who do get on-campus housing each year (about 20 percent each year) are often the students who have the highest opinion of Rice.
Transfers who do not get on-campus housing their first year experience difficulty adjusting to a new school.
When accepted to Rice, all transfers are put on a waiting list for on-campus housing.
Transfers do not receive a definitive word about housing until a few weeks before O-Week. Some are offered housing during and after O-Week and must break new leases at the last minute to live on campus.
At the very least, greater coordination and a more clearly communicated housing policy are needed.
Rice is one of a few prestigious private schools that do not accommodate housing for all first-year students.
Other schools which do not guarantee transfer housing (Emory, Northwestern University and Cornell University) do not have residential colleges.
Residential colleges are the foundation of social and cultural life here.
If transfers must live off campus their first year, it is very difficult to feel integrated at colleges.
When deciding to live on campus their next year, transfers must have at least one person willing to live with them in order to get a room.
There is no incentive for first-year students living off campus to move on if they are not comfortable at their respective colleges.
It is common for transfers to change colleges if they know more people elsewhere, but this involves starting yet again.
Ideally, the process of transferring to Rice would not involve sacrifice but an enhancement of one's social, personal and intellectual life.
Transfer students come with the same naiveté about Rice and the same eagerness for new experience as matriculating freshmen, and they should be given the same opportunity to learn and discover.
Michael Corbett
Baker '97
Pam Carlson
SRC '96
Co-Presidents
Rice Association of Transfer Students
This item appeared in the Opinion section of the February 23, 1996 issue.
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