Housing at UD is one of the college's most unique characteristics. Obviously, the Ghetto and the Darkside provide an interesting situation in which students live in houses on campus, as opposed to the trend of most other institutions of upperclass students living in houses or apartments off campus. But the dorms, too, are distinctive. Their size is not the interesting part, as many freshmen dorms across the country are almost unbearably small, but it is their charm, which is brought about by characteristics from decades past. For example, Founders has a nuclear fallout shelter and Marycrest has only one urinal, and it is hidden in a bathroom in the basement. In general, the residential community is also unique because 98 percent of students live on campus, something uncharacteristic of most American universities.

Unfortunately, the high density of students in these different housing situations causes some problems'too many problems many might say. The thing that affects all of these students uniformly is the housing lottery. It comes around once a year and, to many, causes as much stress as an important test. Why? The name explains it; it is a lottery and concerns are completely justified and understandable. A group must compete with any amount of other groups for the same houses and suite rooms; if a person's group has a lot of credits and the random lottery system treats them well, this group could be fortunate and end up with a nice, new renovated house in a great, desired location. If they receive a poor lottery number, however, they could end up in a house on the streets further away from campus than Chambers, which is inhabited by few UD students, or worse, be told their only option is Founders (despite their class status).

But what adds to the worries that students will forever be doomed to Founders or a house that has been treated horribly in the decades UD has owned it, is that the lottery is too often flawed, meaning that the process is unnecessarily prolonged, furthering the stress of students.

For example, last year some housing groups received up to three different lottery numbers at different times that ranged anywhere from great to horrible. Clearly this did not ease the worries of the students involved.

Similarly, the current freshmen recently went through their first housing selection process, which was, unsurprisingly, prolonged due to misunderstandings in the system. For the freshmen, this experience was accompanied by great amounts of confusion, because Residential Services did not explain the process in a clear manner and did not smoothly follow through with its plan.

This added stress to students is completely unnecessary and undesired. The individuals who lead the housing process at UD need to understand this. Creating a sensible, fair system and clearly explaining it to students. This task may be arduous and should involve students themselves, but it should be made a priority because students deserve a quick and simple housing lottery.