The Office of Residence Life’s sophomore housing website stopped working for the second time this semester Monday night.
The original housing sign-up day was moved after the website went down March 25. Any claimed rooms were erased, and all freshmen were provided their original random sign-up times after the first crash.
Mary Janz, executive director of housing and residence life, said ORL tested the website April 4. The cause of the issue is unknown.
“We are uncertain as to why it did not work tonight but are awaiting a call from the vendor (of the website),” Janz said in an email. “The housing system didn’t crash … We took the link offline and have contacted our vendor for after-hours support to determine what went wrong.”
Sean Berthold, associate director of residence life and housing operations, sent an email statement to all freshmen at 5 p.m. stating ORL was unsure why the site didn’t work. Signups began at 4 p.m. and ORL said the website seemed to stop working at 4:30 p.m.
Berthold also said the April 4 test was completed successfully with no issues. Resident assistants did a mock run-through of the housing application process between 8 and 11 p.m.
There is no clear plan for how ORL will continue the housing process. No new sign-up date has been given.
“Residence Life has decided to stop the current housing selection process and will not start it again until we have a definitive resolution with our vendor,” Berthold said. “Even if we are able to resolve the issue quickly with our vendor, the process will not resume this evening.”
Victoria Houle, a freshman in the College of Nursing, said she had a 4:15 p.m. sign-up time and was frustrated by the realization that the website stopped working again.
“We had been lucky to get a Humphrey double each time, but this time when we finally thought we were set, our meal plan would not go through,” Houle said. “We were stuck with either trying to reboot and losing the room or watching the time decrease on our locked room and running over to the ORL office.”
Houle and her potential roommates decided to go to the ORL office and were greeted by several other students in the same boat. She said ORL staff told students that their spaces would be reserved despite the site going down, but ORL ultimately decided to cancel the process entirely.
“The crash is absolutely obnoxious,” Houle said. “The stress that comes along with a room not going through is something I don’t want to experience again.”
Joe Phelan, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, said his sign-up time was at 5:30 p.m., and he read the email statement shortly after it was sent out.
“This second crash makes me frustrated and a little angry,” Phelan said. “I understand that they moved to a new system, but they tested it and it worked fine. They should’ve been able to fix all the problems after the first crash.”
