The new ranking system to determine how students living on campus will receive room assignments, scheduled to begin last week, will not be used this semester due to student opposition.The system, which was met with opposition, resulting in more than 50 filed complaints and a petition with more than 200 student signatures, was proposed by Rushton Johnson, dean of student life, who introduced the new system last Tuesday to determine room assignments for students living on campus. With the new system, students would receive a rank based on their classification and GPA to determine who gets first pick of room assignments.

Johnson said the new system was proposed to give students more control of the assignment process by not leaving roommate selection up to administration. This would give the students a greater role in their residence and more incentive to perform well academically.

“We’re trying to get out of the business of deciding who is compatible and giving that decision to the students,” Johnson said.

Lisa Grubbs, director of residence life, said students were against the new system for several reasons. Grubbs said students felt they did not receive enough input in the decision to implement the new system and that it was unfair to prioritize students based on their GPA.

Due to the opposition, the new system will not be implemented for the fall semester. Students will sign up for room assignments using the old system, but instead of receiving official room assignments in July, students will receive their assignments in the final week of April.

“I would venture to say there were just as many concerns voiced against the old system as there were against the new one,” Johnson said.

Beginning next semester, Johnson said every complaint and adjustment would be documented to better support the introduction of the new system. He also said he would like there to be more discussion about the new system so it could be reconsidered in the future.

“I’d like to have more conversations with students to see if they are more opposed to the concept or just that they were not receiving good explanations on how it works,” Johnson said. “I think students will be less distrusting and less inclined to believe there’s some insidious ulterior motive behind the system.”

“I think when the dust settles, majority of our residents will be satisfied,” Grubbs said.