Editor’s Note: Evan Frawley uses he/they pronouns, but he/him pronouns will be featured for clarification purposes.

For the 2025-26 school year, UW-Eau Claire Housing is trying a new system for on-campus student room selection. The school is moving away from random housing lottery numbers and is now based on resident-earned educational credits.

The change from the lottery system was prompted by a survey conducted last spring by the Resident Hall Association (RHA). RHA president Isabelle Shepard, a finance and accounting student, said students gave feedback about how they wished the process would improve, so changes are being made.

“Originally the housing lottery system was put into place due to student feedback a few years ago as it was determined the most fair and acceptable solution to the students at that time,” Shepard said. “Now, students believe that the housing selection system could be improved by using a different system.”

Housing Coordinator Quincy Chapman said the new system will be based on the number of credits a student earned at Eau Claire instead of randomly assigned numbers. This change will give upper-classmen a better chance of getting housing.

“Matters last up first-year students who won’t have their final grades and won’t be able to show how many earned credits they have,” Chapman said. “But it wouldn’t have made a difference to first-year students much anyway.”

Shepard said the process for RHA to appeal the system was created after gauging student responses. The chair of RHA’s initiatives and improvements wrote a Lottery System Resolution and presented it at one of their general assembly meetings.

According to Shepard, The RHA representatives went back to their hall councils to discuss and collect feedback on the Lottery System Resolution. Then at the following general assembly meeting, RHA reps passed the resolution based on input from their respective halls.

Shepard said the resolution went to Chapman after being passed in the general assembly and was approved. The new process is being implemented this year. 

Chapman said student feedback was not the only reason for the change, with complaints left on parent Facebook groups and other feedback forums.

Housing Coordinator of Student Senate, Evan Frawley, said that senate was not active in the process, but he has only heard good things so far about the system change.

Frawley said he hopes to be more involved with the RHA and housing, as the role of housing coordinator is still relatively new.

“I know that last year was when they wanted to make this change from a lottery process to a credit base,” Frawley said. “This way upperclassmen had a bigger chance at getting into the housing they actually wanted.”

Shepard said only credits earned at UW-Eau Claire will count towards the housing selections, meaning first-years are going in with zero credits and second-years will only have credits from the previous year.

“Any credits earned at a different university, tech school, or through AP exams will not count towards student’s housing selection placement,” Shepard said. “This is because originally, student feedback was that they wanted housing selection placements based on how many semesters they had previously lived on campus.”

Room selection day and time slots will be emailed to students on Nov. 26. Actual room selection will start on Dec. 2 and run through Dec. 6.

Boggess can be reached at [email protected].