A room change may be the outcome of this process, but is the exception and not the rule. Room changes are NOT guaranteed as we do not have the room capacity to grant every request.   

Importance of Navigating Conflict  

• Community Development: Residence Life values creating healthy and safe communities. An important aspect of this is stability. When living in a community for the whole year, it helps provide this stability and encourages students to rely on each other, develop and deepen relationships, and establish ongoing community standards and values.  
• Problem-Solving: Navigating challenging situations is an important experience and learning how to compromise and communicate is a vital life skill. We encourage residents to put in substantial effort into making their living situation work for them. 
• Diverse Living Experiences: Westminster College offers a variety of living situations for residents, however sometimes that means residents will not get their first choice of rooms every year. Respecting this and making the best of what may not be your ideal assignment allows for growth and individual development. Additionally, there is always a human component to roommate conflicts that provides a unique experience to each mediation. 
• Administrative Impact: Changing rooms is not as simple as moving a few bags. Every room change requires work from Residence Life and our Physical Plant Office and sometimes other campus departments. If Residence Life accepted and processed every room request, that would take up a large portion of our time.   

Things to Consider  

• Moving is Not the Norm: Approved room-change requests must be due to extenuating circumstances, beyond our Open Room Selection process. This is part of our philosophy to encourage students to stay in their communities, your situation needs to merit an exception.  
• Consider Our Philosophy: Knowing our department appreciates community and problem-solving, requests that include a visible effort to make a situation work are more likely to be approved than those that do not. We encourage you to speak about these efforts during your roommate mediation. 
• Current Situations Dictate Change: We approve changes because the current environment is unsuitable for a student, not because the student would prefer a different building or room. Though we may take requests into account when re-assigning, our motivation is never that you prefer the view from Russell or that you know a friend who just moved and would like to live there.   
• Open and Honest Communication: We ask that students keep open and honest communication with both their roommate and Residence Life during this time. We are only aware of what we are told by students, and it is important to ensure you keep us informed about how you are feeling and how things are going.  
• Capacity Matters: Room changes are also dictated by available rooms for our buildings, Residence Life reserves a few rooms in each building to be vacant in case of emergencies such as threats to physical safety, facility emergencies, or medical emergencies. Sometimes room changes may not be able to be presented to students immediately due to these reasons.  
  • Important Note: It is important to know that while rooms may seem or be vacant, we often set aside rooms for people returning from leaves (study abroad, LOAs, etc.), students who need specific accommodations, or we may have already offered it to another student.   

Addressing Conflict  

Listed below is an outline of how roommate conflicts are handled, should they require staff intervention, as well as staff contact information. Please know that our mediation process is not an instant process as conflict resolution requires time.   

While there may be some exceptions to going through mediation, these will only be approved by the Director of Residence Life. 

• Step 1: Conflict is Presented to Residence Life Staff  
• Step 2: Conflict is Clarified 
  • Student staff will work to explore the situation with all involved residents. Separate discussions are held with each resident to identify and address concerns. 
• Step 3: Facilitated Conversation 
  • Discussion is facilitated by Resident Assistants. If there is further assistance needed, sometimes an Area Coordinator may facilitate these conversations.
  • Residence Life staff work with residents to articulate the concerns and reflect on the impact of those concerns, to identify strategies for resolution. 
  • Roommate agreements are reviewed or created with students during the conversation. 
• Step 4: Conflict Resolution 
  • Solutions are considered and agreed upon and the roommate agreement is updated. 
  • Residence Life staff members work with student staff to provide ongoing resident follow-up. 
  • If a resident desires to change rooms after roommates have attempted the resolutions for two weeks, they can request a room change.  If you have an extreme situation in which even these 2 weeks are not possible, please talk to your Area Coordinator ASAP. 
• Step 5: Changing Rooms (if applicable) 
  • If students are approved to move rooms, know that it may take an additional 2-3 business days for students to be approved to move. This is to ensure that our Physical Plant has ample time to clean our facilities. 
  • Students will be given a 3-day window to move from one space to another. Students will need to turn in their old room key within 24 business hours after completing their move or they will be charged $50 for a lock replacement. 

Remember, although our Residence Life staff are trained mediators, they are not magicians. Some roommate conflicts require a few mediations before a workable solution can be found. In other cases, the roommate relationship may not be mended even after an honest attempt at mediation has been made. In those cases, and only in those cases, a room change may be the best answer.