Bridgewater, Va. – Bridgewater College’s room selection for “last chance” closes on April 16 at 12 p.m. which means the housing selection process is over for the majority of Bridgewater students. This year the housing selection process came with two fundamental changes to the way upperclassmen housing is picked.

The method in which a student’s eligibility for upperclassmen housing was changed this year. In previous years, upperclassmen housing–the Cottages, Stone Village and Wampler Towers–was assigned by how many credits a student had. 

For some of these locations, there was also a GPA requirement. However, all of that has been changed to a “Housing Points” system. This housing points system now takes into account each student’s GPA and their total credit hours in order to decide what housing they are eligible for. 

The housing points given for each student’s GPA are divided into 11 tiers. The first tier, which consists of GPAs less than 1.0, grants the student one housing point. These tiers increment by one housing point until the final tier, which consists of GPAs between 3.8 and 4.0, granting the student 11 housing points.

The housing points given for each student’s total credit hours are similarly distributed into seven tiers. The first tier, which consists of total credit hours less than 29 credits, grants the students two housing points. These tiers increment by two housing points until the final tier, which consists of total credit hours greater than 102 credits, granting the student 14 housing points.

“It think it will [be a better system over all], it encourage[s] what students are here to do,” said Assistant Director and facilitator for Bridgewater’s housing selection, Ricky Reiss.

“I think the housing points system is an upgrade. I like it because it provides structure,” said rising junior Kimberly Wild.

The other change to upperclassmen housing is that the Cottages are now able to be coed. This change was implemented to promote gender inclusivity.

“All Cottages are now gender inclusive. This means that your application is not limited by a student whose gender identity matches your own,” said Reiss in her document on the changes made to the housing selection process.

Reiss noted that all of the cottages that were gender inclusive were filled by the students. Reiss also reassured that there will be no random filling in the gender inclusive housing to assure that all students are comfortable with their living arrangement.

“At this point, we don’t allow a random selection into gender inclusive [housing]. You would have to elect for that. I don’t know if we would ever go to that degree, because it is hard to show that everyone is actually comfortable and doesn’t just want ‘x’ type of housing.” said Reiss.

Reiss also noted that this is the first she has heard of concerns regarding coed housing, but she is glad that they have been brought to her attention.

“Heidi Hoover and Shannon Pope, our Title IX folks, were involved with the conversation to see what that looks like, and we didn’t have any overt concerns. But, we would definitely hope that, if that becomes a concern, that students would reach out to those resources so that we could address it,” said Reiss.

If students have any housing related concerns, they can contact student life at [email protected] or Reiss at [email protected].

If students have any Title IX concerns, they can contact Heidi Hoover at 540-828-8063, Shannon Pope at 540-828-8072, or Allyson Kenyon at 540-828-5784 with any questions or reports they have.