Housing registration system fails, many students without rooms

Freshman Avery Lee logged on to the on-campus housing Web site at 9 a.m. to select her room for the 2010 fall semester.

An hour later, she was late for class and still without housing.

Lee was one of an estimated 1,100 freshmen who were unable to register Monday for rooms in residence halls other than their own. Only seven students successfully received room assignments through the program, said Rick Bradley, assistant director of the housing department.

Students unable to register will likely have to wait until next week for another chance.

The problems with the system were restricted to students who tried to select rooms in residence halls other than the ones in which they currently reside. Those students were divided into two registration groups, at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Lee said she called the Office of Housing & Residential Education about 15 times. When she was finally connected, Lee said she was told to e-mail the Student Affairs division with her desired room assignment. As of Monday afternoon, she said that e-mail had gone unanswered.

“We had several hundred phone calls and e-mails this morning,” Bradley said.

Bradley said the problem with the system was possibly caused by an overload of the server. He said officials within the housing office would not know for sure what caused it until Residential Management Systems, the Raleigh-based software company that provided the system, could officially pinpoint the problem.

Kyle Hammett, a customer success manager at Residential Management Systems, declined to comment on the situation.

Bradley said the University has been using Residential Management Systems software for nearly a decade for housing assignments, but this year was the first in which the system allowed students to pick and choose individual rooms.

No issues were reported with earlier housing registrations for upperclassmen or students seeking apartments in communities such as Rams Village and Odum Village.

Bradley said the problems on Monday were unrelated to problems students had last month attempting to register for other rooms within their current residence halls.

Although some students said they heard the system would be back online today, Bradley said the housing module might not return until next week.

He said housing is working to contact students about what might happen in the near future regarding their living situation.

“We’re not going to relaunch until we’re certain that we’re not going to have the same issue occur,” he said.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.