Posted by Douglas Fisher on Wednesday, February 11, 2015 in Moore, News, Warren.

I think that most all understand the policy on study abroad students wanting to return to Warren College (or Moore College) — they will have to reapply to Warren and Moore in the open lottery, though they will receive a priority status relative to other students who are in their class (e.g., among other rising seniors).

A group of students living in Warren College during Spring cannot partner with a returning study-abroad student and still go through the internal lottery — such a hybrid group would have to go through the open lottery.

The “safe” approach, where “safety” assumes that staying at Warren is prioritized above other factors, is for the group living at Warren now to go through the internal lottery as an entirely self-contained group, with no “empty slot” held out for the student abroad. Under the “safe” path, the resident who is returning will go through the open lottery to return to Warren (or Moore for that matter, because it is an open lottery for Warren and Moore).

The policy is intended to take into account a number of factors, including continuing to ensure good balance across all three upper classes.

I hope that an assurance of returning to Warren can be given in future years to students who study abroad and who have lived at Warren for several semesters already. Warren and Moore represent a continued commitment by Vanderbilt University, which began with the Commons, to rethink and encourage persistent, supportive communities on campus. Warren and Moore aren’t just buildings — they are communities.  After all, I want students to commit to Warren, and I want to commit to them — a Warren community member who studies abroad, is still a Warren community member, or so we aspire to that ideal in practice and in theory. The study-abroad policy is an important issue that we will revisit for future years, but this year the policy that is in place is an appropriate one, balancing a number of factors, and indeed it may prove to be the best policy going forward as well — we’ll see. Your comments are welcome!

Again, a “safe” strategy for those currently living at Warren for guaranteeing housing at Warren, is to go through the in-house lottery with one, self-contained group, with the returning student going through the open lottery, with a priority, but no guarantee (i.e., there has to be a class-specific slot available when the returning student rises to the top of the queue relative to other returning students).

My focus has been on Warren College in this post, but of course, my comments apply to Moore College as well.

Doug Fisher is the Faculty Director of Warren College, the Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Digital Learning, and an Associate Professor of Computer Science and of Computer Engineering. The opinions herein are Doug’s and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Vanderbilt University.