EDITORIAL: Wanted: staff for our residences

Officials need a contingency plan to ensure that the college houses will be fully-staffed next year. With only 40 applicants thus far for 104 graduate associate positions, administrators must face the serious reality that unless they develop a contingency plan, residences may be short-staffed next fall. Since many graduate students haven't yet solidified their plans for the immediate future, additional applications will probably continue to trickle in through August. Even still, all graduate students already received an e-mail stressing last week's deadline. Most of those who wanted to apply already have. The response from now on, therefore, will likely be minimal. In the face of a staffing problem, the Office of Academic Programs and Residence Life shouldn't rely on first-year graduate students to fill the graduate associate positions. These students -- most of whom attended other universities as undergraduates, some even in other countries -- are too busy adjusting to the University themselves to be a valuable resource for undergraduates. But even the opportunity to fill the positions with Residential Advisors will soon be gone, as undergraduates finalize plans for where they will live next year. Officials cannot wait until August to admit a shortage. They need to try another tactic now so they don't have to lower their standards to fill the positions. One way to lure more quality applicants would be to boost the benefits package for incoming graduate associates. When administrators initially presented the college house plan, they plugged the $6,900 in room and board graduate associates would receive as a supplement to their stipend -- a grant graduate programs give to support students through their studies. Since then, however, restructuring of the benefits package has resulted in an effective deduction of as much as $2,000 from the stipends these students would have received previously. Although more money will be available for graduate students overall, the individual graduate associate positions are a lot less attractive than they first seemed. For graduate students who really rely on their stipends to support themselves, $2,000 is not a trivial decrease. And it is not worth losing potential applicants for graduate associate positions. Additional staffing and increased academic support are among the best selling points of the college house plan. And conversely, a full staff is essential for the success of the college houses. We hope officials don't lower their standards in order to fill the positions.