Last evening faculty and students gathered in Flora Rose House to celebrate the newest addition to the West Campus housing system. The Flora Rose House is the fifth and final house in West Campus and West Campus Housing initiative.

Despite its completion last year, the Rose House will now be officially entered into the West Campus House System. The West Campus Housing Initiative was finished under budget and two years ahead of schedule.

Far, far away in a little-known part of town is Schuyler House — a dormitory near downtown Ithaca that most upperclassmen have never even heard of. Housed in Schuyler is a contingent of students without a dining hall, whose neighbors are local Ithacans, and who trudge 20 minutes uphill every day to get to class. Unfortunately, these students are not upperclassmen, embracing the independent Collegetown lifestyle. Instead, these 110 students are some of the most marginalized of students at Cornell: transfers.

On Wednesday nights, Prof. Jefferson Cowie walks upstairs from his apartment to his 7:30 class. He abandons the typical professorial necktie, and rather than walking in with a briefcase, he brings only his dog Higgins.

About a dozen students, some sporting pajama bottoms, greet him as he enters, all of them vying for his attention as they propose potential community service projects, ask questions about course credit or complain about the course’s inaccessibility on Blackboard — all the while avoiding Higgins as he runs around in search of a free hand to pet him.

“I will lay my body in front of the president’s office if I have to,” Cowie said in response to his attempts to offer credit for the course, which, at the time, was one of his top priorities.

To the Editor:

Re: “A Solution to Transfer Housing,” Opinion, April 7.

When I first arrived at Cornell as a sophomore transfer, I was entirely convinced that the University hated me. I found orientation to be completely disorienting. I was absolutely befuddled as to which orientation activities were for transfers, which were for freshmen and which were for both. I was also thoroughly lost. Weaving around the rampant construction on West Campus, I went through a couple of campus maps as I frantically deciphered building codes trying to find out where on earth the Transfer Center was supposed to be. To make matters worse, the weather was decidedly fickle, and I had yet to discover the wisdom of carrying an umbrella on my person at all times.

Tasked with unprecedented demand and no new beds, Cornell Housing (CH) faces great challenges in the coming years to place all students who so desire into on-campus housing.

And that is exactly how this article would start if it were a news item. However, this is my space, so I would like to give my angry opinion on the matter.

To the Editor:

Re: “A Quick Fix to the Cost of Living,” Opinion, March 11

I am writing in response to the article and editorial regarding the Student Assembly’s recent resolution to scale undergraduate housing rates.

Cornell’s Gothic residences are among our most cherished facilities, integral to Cornell’s rich history. I appreciate students’ concerns about perceived discrepancies between the Gothics and the newer buildings on West Campus. However, our current rate structure was created in close collaboration with student leaders and with support from the Cornell community. We strongly believe that this rate structure promotes equity and community on campus, and embodies the spirit of the West Campus House System.

As Sinead Lykins ’12 was about to start her Spring Break, she was unpleasantly surprised when maintenance personnel arrived at her Lyon Hall dorm room, intent on removing the two interior doors in her three-room suite.

As part of an effort to bring certain West Campus dorms into compliance with fire code changes, Cornell Housing scheduled interior doors to be removed from several West Campus dorm rooms on the afternoon of March 13.

The disappointing results of the housing lottery last week stirred deep-rooted concerns about the nature of on-campus housing at Cornell. Even after $225 million were spent on the West Campus Residential Initiative, many students were left unhappy this past week. The University has rightly sought to ensure a meaningful and closely knit campus community, but as the situation stands now, it hasn’t pulled its weight to ensure student satisfaction.

Last week’s housing lottery highlighted concerns over whether the West Campus housing system is evolving into an increasingly two-tiered hierarchy of living options. While many students were satisfied with their assignment to rooms in the new dormitories, those assigned to the Gothics expressed concern over a mounting discrepancy between their accommodations and those provided to their peers.

Proponents of the new residential initiative argue that the house system has positively influenced the overall quality of living on West Campus, but some students are concerned that the Gothics have been left behind by the initiative.