A recent housing selection event for rising KSC juniors and seniors was interrupted by a technical glitch, according to an email sent to those affected. Community living staff and students alike adapted in response.
Director of Transitions and Community Living Casey Justice said this was the first issue the office staff has experienced with StarRez, the housing service KSC has used since January.
“We had done our first selection process with the portal last February for rising sophomores and it worked seamlessly,” Justice said. “We used the process again for our first-year students coming in. It worked seamlessly, so we were honestly very surprised this past Friday when we noticed that there was this weird glitch.”
The glitch in question allowed housing group leaders to select suites and apartments in the portal even if their groups did not meet the requirement of filling all the beds in those units. Justice said a large portion of these issues occurred for students trying to select housing in the Pondside 2 (P2) on-campus apartments.
“The group leader would select the apartment, and you had to have the full four people in order to select,” Justice said. “The group leader went in and the other three students didn’t pull in with the student. Now on the student side, they placed those three students in rooms and all of them received a confirmation email that said, ‘You’ve selected,’ but in the portal, it still looked like those rooms were available.”
To address the difficulties caused by the glitch, the email sent to students requested they reply with their housing preferences. From there, community living staff placed students in their preferred units in order of when their designated selection times had been.
“I honestly just want to thank all the students for that process because it could have been very difficult for us to manage because everybody’s got heightened anxiety about where they’re going to live,” Justice said. “Our students reacted flawlessly in this situation. … They did such a good job, which allowed us to then focus on really just housing everybody to the best of our ability. At this point, everybody that we were able to house based on what we had available has been housed.”
Follow-up emails were sent out the following week to affected students to let them know their housing status. Students who were not able to be placed in housing, their next opportunities on the following two selection dates, which have now each been pushed back by a week.
On Friday, Nov. 7, students will be able to select from quads, doubles and any remaining suites; additionally, students will still need to fill these units with their groups for this selection.
On Friday, Nov. 14, students will be able to select by the bed in the remaining units.
“Typically, what [the last selection is] going to consist of is double rooms, more than likely, that have two beds,” Justice explained. “A student could select one of the beds in that room, and then a different student could select the other bed and they’d be able to see kind of preferences based on if students filled out the little description box. … That’s how they could kind of pair up.”
Additionally, students who have their sights set on P2 can request to be placed on a waitlist, although Justice said the list will likely not be reviewed until the spring semester.
“Some people could have selected a P2 [unit] that are on the fence about maybe moving off-campus or not and they just wanted to secure housing first, and then if they get an off-campus apartment, then they’ll let us know,” Justice said. “So there could be movement. We just don’t know what it’s going to look like as of yet.”
Charlotte King can be contacted at
cking@kscequinox.com
