As the March 10 deadline for Room Draw applications nears, first-years, sophomores and juniors are scrambling to find an even number of friends. This year, however, will provide some added anxiety due to the return of two renovated dorms and the loss of two others to year-long overhaul projects. The deviations from the standard Room Draw rotation have also led to a theme housing shuffle which only further exacerbates the annual stress. In addition to all of this change, students are faced with a room option that, until now, was a rarity for non-first-years on campus: the one-room double-an option that we think has no place outside of the Freshman Quad.

Due to the housing rearrangement next year, two dorms that have primarily housed seniors in singles-Garman and Hamilton Houses-will be omitted from Room Draw. These quiet, single-inhabitant rooms have been replaced by a comparable number of singles across College Street in the reincarnations of Pratt and Morrow Dormitories. But according to the Residential Life Department's Web site, 58 of the 64 non-single rooms in these new upperclass dorms will be one-room doubles.

More than five years ago the College, then under the reigns of President Tom Gerety, developed the Residential Master Plan. At the heart of this venture was the return of all first-year housing to the Freshman Quad, but peripheral aspects included renovations such as the projects mentioned above. Gerety was quoted in Amherst Magazine shortly before his resignation as an advocate of the one-room double: "To room with another person is to be forced to converse about the most basic order of the room and the day … it is to make oneself vulnerable to the other." While we understand the merits of putting first-year students in close quarters, we do not think it is beneficial for veteran students.

The College is now midway through its Residential Master Plan, and by all accounts the revamped Freshman Quad is a work of art. The common rooms, the study space and the concept of integrating extracurricular activities into the fabric of the dorms are all great ideas. But our first glimpse of the College's view of upperclass housing is one we hope is not representative of the remainder of the plan.

While students were widely consulted at the onset of the Residential Master Plan, it is time for the administration to again reach out to the campus community for advice. After five years of construction, almost half of the current student body has lived in a new or recently renovated dorm: who better to help plan the future of Amherst housing? Although plans are certainly prepared for this summer's restorations, there is much left to be decided about housing at the College, and students should help inform that decision.