Photo Illustration: Aqib Shirazi
High demand for Lister dry floors
Amanda Strachan
Gateway Writer
Oct 19, 2011
Student demand for quiet and alcohol-free floors in Lister Centre has exceeded the number of rooms available, despite criticism from residents over the changes implemented last February.
Out of nearly 800 first-year students who confirmed their Lister applications last July, 24 per cent requested an alcohol-free floor, while 46 per cent requested a quiet floor.
The results are similar to an online poll sent out by Residence Services last December, in which 51 per cent of the 302 residents surveyed said they would live on a quiet floor, while 19 per cent indicated they would live on an alcohol-free floor.
However, the three quiet floors and two alcohol-free floors in Lister Centre can only house 40 students per floor, leaving hundreds of students without their preferred choice.
Although Lister Centre wasn’t able to accommodate the high demand this year, Director of Residence Services Dima Utgoff isn’t ruling out the potential expansion of dry or quiet floors in the future.
“We want to start small and evaluate it, because if you go too big and it doesn’t work, it’s much harder to fix it,” he said. “Certainly if there is a large demand, we’re going to want to look at how we want to expand this next year.”
Meeting the specific needs of students is a priority according to Utgoff, and he encouraged students wishing to transfer to another floor to speak with Residence Services. “Part of our role is to try and meet as many different needs as possible,” he added.
Utgoff also credited the individual floors for making the changes a success, and said there was no intention of imposing “a long shopping list of rules” on them, which he believes would defy the point of the new floors.
“For the alcohol-free floors, obviously … we don’t want people in possession of alcohol, we don’t want them drinking in the lounges. But to be perfectly honest, if somebody has their door closed, we’re not going to run in and do room inspections. That’s just not the way we live.”
Aditya Rao, President of the Residence Halls Association, commended the efforts of Residence Services in conducting the survey and following through on the results. Rao hopes that the majority of students are able to obtain their preferred accommodation, and he said he would “applaud Residence Services for attempting to reach out to students in that matter.”
Concern still remains over Residence Services’ consultation with student groups, particularly communication with the Lister Hall Students’ Association (LHSA).
Rao referred to the issues as “consultative hiccups,” but he said that the RHA stands behind the individual residence associations and respects their decisions.
Although Utgoff believes that Residence Services did an adequate job of consulting with student groups, he realizes that not all of them were pleased.
“I think that if you were to talk to the former president of the Lister Hall Students’ Association, I don’t think he was too happy with the way the consultation process worked,” Utgoff said.
The Lister Hall Students’ Association representatives declined to comment on the matter.
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