New department to enhance student services

A new department called Residential and Hospitality Services has opened at Penn.

The restructuring is not a downsize, but instead a reorganization to make the services more streamlined and efficient for students, according to Executive Director of Business Services Doug Berger.

Housing and Off-Campus Services are included under the residential umbrella of the new department, while Conference, Dining and Catering services are under the hospitality umbrella.

“A goal is to try to get some synergies between the departments,” he said.

“In terms of what we are offering students, nothing is changing. We are enhancing how we offer it, but nothing is going away,” Business Services spokeswoman Barbara Lea-Kruger said.

For one, there will now be building administrators servicing each College House information desk, which will give students direct access to the people in charge of their College House.

“Last year, to get a squirrel problem in my room taken care of, I had to jump through a ton of hoops to get someone to finally come to my room,” said rising Engineering sophomore Victoria Meliska, who lived in Fisher-Hassenfeld College House last year. “So, I think it would be very good to be able to have direct contact to them.”

There will be the same number of jobs under the new structure as before. Although some old positions were discontinued, new ones have been created.

Staff members affected by the change had the option of applying to the new positions and some were rehired in different areas, according to Berger. Those who were not rehired received a benefits packet.

The housing assignment system is in the process of changing to a more convenient and streamlined system called Star Rez, which will go in affect in 2012, according to Lea-Kruger. It will give students more information about housing availability.

“Applying for housing was really difficult, we were fighting probability and we had no idea where we would get in realistically,” Meliska said. “If you were able to see where there were rooming availabilities, I think it would have made us a lot less stressed.”

“Students have told us that the current room selection process is confusing because it is handled differently by different College Houses. Some students also end up having to apply several different times,” Lea-Kruger said. “Under the new system there will be one simple, online application.”

The new system will also let students hear about their housing assignments faster. “Due to the manual process, the old system could take up to three months before a student was notified of their room assignment,” Lea-Kruger said. “The new process will be much quicker.”

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