On April 2, the General Assembly was held in a forum format to discuss Residential Education, Inter-Residence Hall Council and the recent housing raffle controversy. All eight professional employees of Res Ed were also present alongside students and Student Government Executive Board members.

Dean of Students, Kyle Farley, began the forum by suggesting that students focus on reducing confusion and promoting accountability. Farley spoke about the lack of communication between departments, such as Res Ed, Facilities and Public Safety.

Director of Res Ed, Audrey Kajumbula, responded to the housing raffle controversy by insisting that the raffle was an incentive to get students to engage with the changes that were occurring in the housing process this year. Students will not have to apply for housing each term, instead there will only be one application for each academic year. The room-change procedure has also changed, with no set time period for applications and a higher threshold for a room change to be approved by Res Ed.

Ghaniba Ali, President of IRHC, reiterated that IRHC is separate from Res Ed and is primarily a programming body.

“We are not a policy-oriented student organisation,” clarified Ali. Due to this, Ali argued, IRHC should not become part of Student Government, as suggested in a popular Ideascale petition.

However, Vladislav Maksimov, Class of 2017, pointed out that Student Government already has programming committees, such as the End of the Year Event committee, hence integrating IRHC into Student Government would not make it an anomaly.

Speaking on the housing raffle itself, Jordan Stone, Residential College Operations Manager for the A2 Residential College, noted that the purpose of the prize was to encourage students to be aware of the changes in policy. When asked about the possibility of not holding a raffle in the future, Stone did not make an unequivocal statement and only provided assurance that Res Ed definitely heard the feedback from the student population.

“If there is another large change and we really want to bring people to the table we might need to utilize this tool,” added Stone.

Andrija Klaric, Class of 2018, questioned the framing of the raffle. “I found myself perfectly capable of following those links, finding all I needed … my priority of choosing a room is coming at the expense of someone who is not willing to put in the effort to go through a couple of documents,” said Klaric.

Moving to the question of accountability, Student Government Vice President Maitha AlMemari noted that committees represent the student voice on policies and processes of departments across campus.

“I think with something as big as Res Ed, which controls a lot of things, it would be a good idea to have something separate from the Campus Life Policy Committee,” said AlMemari.