In most ways, the UCLA experience is defined by a wide variety
of choice: Students can select their majors from 121 fields, join
any of the hundreds of campus groups and organizations, and choose
their friends from a university population that exceeds 25,000
undergraduates.
But many students have complained about one area where
UCLA’s characteristic flexibility does not extend ““
housing contracts.
With all university housing agreements made for the entire
academic year, students can be financially committed to
arrangements that are not conducive to academic success or personal
happiness.
“It’s too long a stretch of time,” said
first-year undeclared student Eric Chaghouri.
Chaghouri’s first quarter at UCLA was marked by a
seven-week struggle to find an adequate living situation after
initially being placed with incompatible roommates.
“I got second-year roommates (who) stayed up until four in
the morning playing video games,” he said. “As an
athlete on the volleyball team, I needed to rest.”
Of course, roommate differences and dormitory dissatisfactions
such as those experienced by Chaghouri are endemic to college
life.
What is salient, however, are the contractual restrictions and
other difficulties faced by students placed in such circumstances,
who are trapped in a commitment to university housing, regardless
of how socially unendurable they find it.
Chaghouri, whose family lives in Santa Monica, contemplated
leaving the dorms after the university was initially unable to
provide him with a suitable housing alternative.
But the financial costs of such an action kept him in university
housing, despite the personal and academic costs living in such an
uncomfortable situation might incur.
“I was going to live at home, but how am I going to do
that ““ I already paid for the year,” he said.
After nearly two months, a spot in another room opened, and
Chaghouri was able to moved into a more tolerable situation.
Nonetheless, the memory of his initial housing experience
continues to resonate. The struggle that consumed much of his first
quarter has left him with serious concerns about housing policies
at UCLA.
The broadest issue of concern is the contract length; some
students have wondered why UCLA does not provide the option of
shorter contracts, such as a quarter-length arrangement.
Jack Gibbons, associate director of the Office of Residential
Life, defended the length of housing agreements, saying that it was
the accepted policy at most universities.
Gibbons explained the rationale for this practice lay in the
university’s interest in establishing a campus community.
“We like our residents to develop a greater sense of
stability with where they live,” he said. “Having an
academic year contract fosters that concept.”
Gibbons’s assertion is supported by Angela
O’Dorisio, director of the housing department at Northeastern
University in Boston. Northeastern is one of the few schools that
offers semester or quarter-length contracts.
“The semester-by-semester system does make our residence
halls very transient and the community does suffer a little bit in
terms of the educational component of the residential life,”
she said.
Gibbons said UCLA has no plans to change its contract
policy.
Yet the calls for shorter contracts are not based simply in the
desire for increased flexibility; more complex criticisms of
housing policies and practices underlie these demands.
The inability of the university to provide adequate alternatives
to students unhappy with their current situation is foremost among
these concerns.
Chaghouri, who waited nearly an entire quarter before his
situation was rectified by university housing, was critical of
UCLA’s efforts to improve his living environment.
“It was an extremely slow response,” he said.
Fadwa Rizek, a third-year English student and a resident of
university-owned apartments, found herself in a similar situation
earlier this year, and emerged from her toil with similar
complaints regarding the university’s accommodation of her
needs.
Overtures to university officials did not produce appealing
options, so Rizek remained in a tense situation plagued with
roommate strife and other troubles; she says the living
difficulties had a direct, detrimental effect on her studies.
Officials cite the logistical challenges of providing housing
for thousands with sometimes slowing the speed of response and
limiting the number of options available.
John Byrne, housing assignment manager, said UCLA’s
efforts to be flexible with housing arrangements can only go as far
as the last open bed.
“We can’t make more space than we have,” he
said.
Shirley Wong, associate director of the University Apartments,
stressed the need for compromise in securing comfortable
arrangements, saying a different arrangement is always available if
housing is available.
The problem, she said, comes from students who are very
particular about which accommodations they will accept. If none
appeal, these students will often criticize the university for
leaving them embroiled in a horrible situation when, in fact, other
options do exist.
Another criticism made by students unhappy with their housing
accommodations is the methods the university uses to pair
roommates. Typically, a survey of a few basic questions relating to
sleeping, studying and recreational habits are sent to students
soon after admittance.
Chaghouri points to the shortness and simplicity of the survey
as one of the primary reasons he believes he was placed with such
incompatible roommates when he first came to UCLA.
“How much can they learn about someone in three
questions?” he asked.
Gibbons said the university has no plans to change the policies
used to match students in the resident halls and university
apartments.
Byrne questioned the utility of an expanded questionnaire or
other efforts to bring compatible pairs of students together,
saying problems with present methods would also be inherent in a
broader effort.
Byrne said parents often influence ““ or even outright do
““ the housing surveys, meaning that any survey, whether three
questions or 300 long, frequently falls victim to parents’
misrepresentations of their children.
Also, the rapid change often seen in 17- or 18-year-olds makes
the information collected sometimes irrelevant just months
later.
“How someone answers a question in April of their senior
year in high school could be much different from how they are when
they get to college,” Byrne said.
But these considerations ignore an important fact about
university housing: Though the concerns expressed above are raised
with some frequency, most students find themselves unburdened by
such concerns during their time at UCLA.
Despite the problems that may emerge between UCLA as a landlord
and students as tenants, housing officials are quick to state that
their priority is always student well-being.
“We are here to help people,” Wong said. “We
don’t want to make students miserable.”
Wong added that the university living experience, whether
hellish or heavenly, should be appreciated as a component of
college education, teaching students life lessons that go far
beyond what is found in a chemistry lab or a history text book.
“Part of the education of going to UCLA is learning to
cooperate and negotiate ““ learning to live together,”
she said.