Robert Patterson, chief financial officer of Residential and Hospitality Services, said the decision was made by the RHS administration team based on a few key factors, such as enrollment and residence hall construction.

Next year, Armstrong Hall and Bryan Hall will be closed for renovations. The university will lose about 940 beds and will need to place the incoming students in other rooms.

Patterson said before the school year begins, incoming students pay deposits to reserve dorm rooms. But officials do not know until mid-August how many actually will show up to attend MSU.

Students in transitional housing will be placed in the empty rooms once they are confirmed vacant.
Many students expressed concerns during the meeting, such as effectively completely their jobs as mentors, the lack of communication about the decision and the university accepting too many students to house them all.

Kathy Collins, director of Campus Living Services and Residence Life, said resident mentors will know if they will have a roommate during the first week of August and incoming students will be informed they will be living with a mentor.

The students also were informed they would not be compensated for having a roommate.

In fall 2011, mentors were offered $100 per week for accepting a roommate and 32 mentors chose to use the option. Twenty-one mentors kept their roommates for less than 10 days, Patterson said.

Collins said she could not confirm if Office of Cultural and Academic Transitions, or OCAT, aides would have roommates next year.

Recently, several resident mentors created an online petition against having roommates with a goal of 400 signatures. As of 9 p.m. Monday, there were 345 signatures.

International relations sophomore and Wilson Hall resident mentor Derek Debiak said he looked at the petition, but after taking up Collins’ offer to discuss some of his concerns, he decided not to sign it.

“She had a good understanding of our concerns so putting it on a petition probably wouldn’t be the best way to go about it, even though it does get the word out,” he said.

Collins said she saw the contract and was pleased the mentors took initiative. But despite the students’ concerns, she said officials most likely will not change the contract.

“Just because you have concerns, doesn’t mean it’s going to change, and I know you’re upset and frustrated about that,” she said.

Genomics and molecular genetics sophomore Zachary DeRade, a mentor in Hubbard Hall, said he felt the department made the “purely political” decision in order to calm incoming students in transitional housing by telling them they will be living in doubles, versus tripling with two other freshmen.

“Part of me is just thinking this is coming from, ‘Let’s quiet down the uproar a little,’” he said.

Collins said she hopes resident mentors have an opportunity to learn there are going to be times in any job when they might not agree with a decision that has been made.

“I want them to learn steps to deal with it, and I want to be a good role model in terms of being an administrator that will meet with them and listen,” she said.