Jean Alicandro has seen a lot in the two years she’s been Director of Residence Life at Central Connecticut State University. With limited space available for housing and an ever growing demand, the process of assigning roommates and approving housing requests can get frustrating.
"The hardest thing for us is we're filled to the max, we have a long waiting list. Even during the school year it's hard for people to understand,” Alicandro said. “We're constantly up against the wall.”
This is due, in part, to the infiltration of facebook and other social networking websites in the residence life process. Thanks to facebook, students that are paired up as roommates by the residence life department are able to speak online and get to know one another before they move-in together. This can lead to some students requesting a roommate change before they have officially met the other student.
When asked what advice she would give to incoming students and returning students who will be assigned new roommates, Alicandro said to try not to “preconceive what the potential roommate is like” and to remember that social networking sites are “like a stage,” since people can present themselves in any way they wish.
That said, Alicandro stated that "there’s no reason why a student should suffer" and that if there are problems between roommates that cannot be resolved through mediation the residence life department will relocate the student who filed the complaint if they have room available to do so and the student is willing to move.
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