Making Matches

An interview with housing director David Brown

by Lisa Watts

» Sidebar - RA: Counselor, adviser, friend

This fall marked David Brown’s fifth season overseeing the annual rite of students moving into the residence halls and sorting out space and other issues with their roommates. As director of residential life and housing, Brown oversees a staff of 120 and helps some 1,750 young people make Wooster their home away from home.

We met up with Brown this summer, before the onslaught of the new school year, to hear how his office matches roommates and how they help students weather this unique time in their lives.

Compared to some schools, the questions on our housing application are fairly brief. We ask the students if they are interested in special theme housing – seventy percent of Wooster students choose program houses or themed community living options. Fewer first-year students do, but two-thirds of them will live in first-year centers (Andrews, Douglass, and Wagner halls) with higher student/RA (resident assistant) ratios. We tend to have two schools of thought — the first-years who believe that the way to succeed is to be surrounded by first-year peers, and others who think exposure to "real" upper-classmen is better.

Then we ask: Do you smoke? Do you mind a roommate who smokes? Do you mind a roommate who drinks alcoholic beverages? (We don’t ask if they drink). They tell us if they like to go to bed before 1 a.m. or after; if they like lots of visitors or a few; and whether or not a clean, uncluttered room is important to them. They can name a particular person, a friend or someone they met in orientation, with whom they would prefer to live. Finally, we ask what activities they will participate in and any additional information about their health, interests, or concerns that we should consider.

You can accomplish a lot with these basic lifestyle questions.

Where possible, we try to link a local student with someone who lives a distance away. It gives each person an opportunity to learn something outside of his or her own experience.

We do all our matches by hand. It adds a nice personal touch to read what’s on the applications and try to match students well.

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