Talking Stick - November/December 2018 - 54

student, but I don't think we can say
it's unbiased." After a year of planning, seeking broad feedback, and
coordination, Elon moved to a lottery
by class for returning students' assignment priority, which better exemplified
the university's mission.
The next target in her team's sights
is the housing assignments process for
incoming students. "Right now we are
working through a great many details
and conversing often with university
admissions as we move to randomize housing assignment priority for
incoming students as well," she says.
"In 2019-20 new student selection will
no longer be based on when students
paid their deposit, because we know
who can come up with $500 earlier."

Politics and Powerful
Partnerships
In addition to the more enduring
pieces of institutional identity, Kennedy comments that there are often
key initiatives or high profile programs
that inevitably appear on any campus
and represent opportunities to consider how housing can be best positioned
to support them. An example at the
University of South Carolina reflected
the provost's vision for better organizing academic options for students in
the health sciences. "The idea was that
students may come into the institution
thinking they want to be a doctor, for
example, but through coursework and
practical experiences, discover that career isn't for them," Kennedy explains.
The provost's office wanted students
to have the opportunity to find another
major within health sciences easily,
and "one of the components supporting this was a trans-disciplinary, faculty-led living-learning community."
Housing staff were the catalyst for the
community, with the occupancy team
creating a living-learning community
application for faculty review, collaborating to promote the opportunity, and

TALKING STICK

executing the student assignments to
the community.
Kennedy also notes that while
occupancy management typically is
associated with assignments staff, it is
in fact a combined effort that includes
marketing, facilities, residence life,
and other key partners. University
politics are simply a part of occupancy
management, says Barker. "It's important to remember our core values.
While we never violate those, there
are times we do accommodate some
students over others or honor requests
from advancement, but always with
an eye on the big picture," she says.
"If I can accommodate someone
without hurting another student, I'll
usually do it. People who are successful in this field are able to be flexible."
Penven notes that students unsatisfied
with a room assignment will go to
multiple parties to make their change

IN THOSE TIMES
WHEN THERE ARE
COMPETING AND
OFTEN EVOLVING
PRIORITIES ON
A CAMPUS, IT IS
VALUABLE TO
ZOOM OUT AND
FOCUS ON THE
THINGS UNDER
THE CONTROL
OF OCCUPANCY
MANAGERS.

requests. "Unless you have worked
with occupancy management, it is
difficult to understand how challenging these issues are. There are very
few easy changes, and so there can
be some tension trying to balance the
requests coming through the admissions recruiters with the other change
requests we receive," he says. "Overall,
we are all on the same team, and I
think in the end we work well together
to accomplish our shared goals."
Similarly, Penven and his team
work closely with enrollment management as they work to yield the right
number of students coming to campus
each year. "If a student needs housing,
we do not want to be a hindrance to
them coming to Radford. We always
want to support our colleagues in
admissions." Luskin agrees, saying
that housing leaders at institutions
with adjusting enrollment targets
need to closely monitor goals beyond
just the total number of incoming
students; other factors, such as where
these students come from, might also
be considered. Occupancy decisions
should take into account not only the
number of spaces, but whether or not
the right types of spaces are available
to students. "The connection between
capacity and the type of capacity is
important for strategic enrollment
management goals," Luskin adds.
Facilities represent another key
partnership in strategic occupancy
management. Du's team worked
closely with facilities colleagues to assess and reassign restrooms to achieve
Macalaster's gender-inclusive housing policy. "With room assignments it
was relatively easy to be progressive.
Restrooms were more complicated and
required significant partnership with
facilities staff."
At Radford, various facilities considerations were explored to assess how
to best provide overflow housing. All
restrooms are self-contained within
a room or suite, which limited the

Talking Stick - November/December 2018

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