Students make their way into West Hall. Photo Chester Beltowski/The Dakota Student.

There is a new policy on campus on the cold winter wind — it’s just as bone-chilling as the icy weather that has arrived with this new campus announcement: UND has just made the decision to make it a requirement that freshmen students live in the dorms.

This idea is terrible.

Any freshman student without exemption entirety of their freshman year.

For my freshman year, I went to Tulane University in New Orleans, and they too had this policy. It was not as pleasant or as convenient as it sounds.

At Tulane, the policy‘s main objective was to ensure students made it to class in a timely manner because there was limited public transportation in the city of New Orleans and few places for students to live off campus.

Incoming freshman at Tulane were instructed to create a profile about themselves on a school-hosted website.  Along with a profile, you would upload pictures and students could search for other students with similar interests or majors.  It was a terrific idea to help calm the distress of mandatory freshman dormitory living, but you still had the anxiety of living with a stranger to deal with.

Here at UND, there are easily more than a dozen new apartment complexes going up in Grand Forks, and it is easy to get around in Grand Forks — why make the freshmen pay to live on campus if they don’t want to?

UND claims this policy will enhance the college freshman experience and help students become more involved with organizations at UND.  I think students will participate in those activities if they want to and living in the dorm will not make a difference.

Forcing students to live in the dorms is not the way to entice them into UND involvement, pride and a sense of belonging.

Most of us are well aware of the new apartment complex that is rising up out of the frosted ground across the railroad tracks. It boldly announces the purpose of its daring construction location: “Affordable student housing.”

Frankly, I think UND may be grasping at straws to get some extra inflow of cash to their dorms. The ARH, or Association of Residence Halls, “has been very supportive” in the creation and following implementation of this new policy.

Of course the association is. This policy will bring thousands of extra dollars its way instead of dispersing it into apartment complexes across Grand Forks.

When a student is forced to live with someone they don’t know (against their will), there is bound to be problems with things such as personalities, living styles and priorities.  What happens if a student gets roomed with a peer who wants to come back totally wasted at 3 a.m. half the nights in a week and they are trying to get sleep for upcoming exams? For various reasons, some students work best in their own private space and are not able to handle living with a total stranger for a semester or two.

Fall 2015 will be interesting to see how the incoming freshmen adjust to this new policy. When it comes time for freshman enrollment and dorm assignment, I am assuming the Housing Department will be sifting through exemption paperwork for days on end. Will UND at least give freshmen the choice of choosing their roommates through an online match site, or if they already know a fellow incoming freshman, room with that person?  If not, the RAs should probably get ready for battle in the dorm rooms.

Maggie Upton is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].