Upperclassmen frustrated by their undesirable “preferred” Draw numbers may see their luck change in coming years.

This fall, as part of the Housing Master Plan first articulated in February 2005, Student Housing created two new task forces to re-evaluate the Draw. The first will consider changing the structure of the system and the second will work to ensure the process accommodates transgender students in accordance with the University’s updated nondiscrimination policy.

“The basic goal is we want to try to simplify the Draw,” said Housing Director Rodger Whitney, of the goals of the Housing Draw Task Force. “Everybody thinks the Draw is too complicated. We don’t want it to be like that.”

Whitney added that simplifying the system should increase transparency and improve the general perception of the Draw’s fairness.

“We want to ensure that people aren’t gaming the system,” he said.

According to Whitney, one of the plan’s goals is to improve allocation of “premier spaces” — singles and two-room doubles — for upperclassmen. With the completion of a new upperclassman dorm and a “green” Row house, the University intends to “unstuff” triples in crowded dorms like Mirrielees and Branner. A revamped housing assignment system will more fairly allocate these rooms.

“We want to try to create a more fair system than goes on now,” Whitney said, adding that the task force will look at the possibility of a three-tiered draw system to fix current problems. A key concern is to ensure that students do not draw two preferred years in the 1,000 to 2,000 range, where most Row houses are out of the question.

Students voiced mixed reactions to the proposal of three-tiered priority system, which would effectively ensure students one year of Draw numbers below 1,000, another year between 1,000 and 2,000 and a final unpreferred year of numbers above 2,000.

“I think that it’s good that seniors can plan for a year of good housing,” said Mars resident Taylor Durand ‘10. Kayla Barr ‘10 agreed that it might make the system fairer to assure seniors one year of top-pick housing.

But Columbae resident Annie Schiff ‘08 saw things differently.

“I feel like it would make things more complicated,” she said. “It’s not like all forms of housing fall into three consistent tiers.”

Last year, Philosophy Prof. Marc Pauly ‘96 surveyed the theoretical literature on two-sided match systems like the housing Draw. He has worked with Student Housing in the past, though he has not yet been invited to join a task force this year.

The issue now, he said, is that the housing assignment process has become too complicated.

“The problem is that the system has existed for so long and there have been so many add-ons,” Pauly said, “that it has become so complicated that only the programmer really understands the ins and outs.”

With two tiers of preference and multiple levels of priority in theme houses among other confounding factors, the current system can be difficult to navigate. Pauly himself favors a simplified version, though he added that with every change there is a trade-off. With a simplified system, he said, not all current options may remain available.

He offered the analogy of American and French dining experiences. In the first, the chef cooks to the desire of clients; in the second, the clients accept the chef’s idea of what is good.

“Maybe we want to see it as our right as an education provider to decide that there are certain things that students should walk away with from their housing experience,” he said. “I’m okay with being paternalistic if we agree.”

The Draw itself has been in existence since 1969, undergoing relatively few changes through the years, according to Draw programmer Rich Wales. The last change to the Stanford system, which allowed Draw groups to stay together automatically, was added in 1999.

“For 38 years, this Draw system has served the housing system very well,” Whitney said. “The computer system that Rich Wales designed has been remarkably flexible.”

He added that StarRez, a new system being acquired this year, boasts the additional capability of bypassing the in-house draw and assigning students directly to rooms. This feature — now in place at Princeton and a few other universities across the country — will be considered by the task force.

Most students interviewed were against removing the in-house draw, thinking that it will further complicate the system and place priority on room quality rather than community, but John Maas ‘08 said he understood the value of the system.

“Sophomore year I would have thought that drawing in for your room was a good idea,” Maas said. “I drew into Bob, but my Draw group was last to go in the in-house draw and we got left with the quint [five-person suite]. I definitely wouldn’t have chosen to live there if I had known that would happen.”

Currently a resident of Columbae, Maas said that he is now not so sure what he thinks, since he does value the house community in addition to room assignment. Fellow Columbae resident Schiff said the same.

“For me, the kind of housing community matters more than the room,” Schiff said, adding that Columbae switches rooms every quarter anyway. “I didn’t go into my senior year Draw looking for houses with singles, but looking for houses with a good community.”

Students shouldn’t anticipate changes to the Draw structure before 2010, the year in which the Master Housing Plan is set to go into effect.

Members for the Draw task force have yet to be chosen, Director of Housing Assignments Sue Nunan wrote in an email to The Daily, but the force will include representatives from the offices of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the Vice Provost for Residential and Dining Enterprises, Student Housing, Residential Education and student members appointed by the ASSU.

While the Draw task force is still in its preliminary stages, the second Housing workgroup, a Gender Identity Housing Support Task Force, held its first meeting last Thursday.

“Housing itself is going to be putting in a special policy making sure students know that they are open to any special requests based on gender identity,” said ASSU President Hershey Avula ‘08, a member of the task force.

Whitney said Housing currently accommodates requests based on gender identity on an ad hoc basis, but that it may not be reaching all students. The new policy will reflect the values articulated in the University’s updated nondiscrimination policy and will try to standardize the procedure for gender identity-based assignments.

“The biggest issue was whether or not students would actually have to say they are transgender,” Avula said.

He added that the new policy would not require students to explicitly say they were transgender.

Whitney estimated that the task force would be meeting twice monthly for much of the year, and Avula said the findings of the gender task force should go into effect this spring.

“The changes outlined in the Housing Master Plan offer the potential to improve greatly both housing options and housing allocation policies,” Whitney said. “Once implemented, all undergraduates should reap the benefits.”