Housing and Food Services used a new computer program to match roommates and housing assignments for OU Traditions Square. Housing and Food will re-assess the program's matches, and may re-assign rooms. Jacob Vogt / The Daily

Housing and Food Services may be changing the room assignments of some OU Traditions Square residents next week.

Dave Annis, director of Housing and Food Services, said the process of choosing housing assignments for the campus apartments was different compared to other years. This year, Housing and Food used a computer program to choose the students’ housing from their requested priorities.

“The process this year was different,” Annis said. “We used a House Director system that we had used in the residence halls for three years. This was the first time for the apartments. Anytime you start a new process, there will be some issues you have to work out.”

The Daily reported July 13 that several students were upset with their housing assignments. Students were unhappy because some of the priorities they had requested were not fulfilled, and some residents experienced mix-ups with their future roommates.

Arthur Vincent Jr., aerospace engineering junior, was roomed with a female in his first housing assignment.

“When I filled out my housing contract in March during transfer day, I asked for someone who was clean, quiet and who had their priorities in line,” Vincent said. “I looked on Facebook and, sure enough, my roommate was a girl.”

Other students said they were discontent with the floor plans they were provided, because they believed they could receive their requested bedroom.

“I requested a two-bedroom [apartment] with my roommate, and was told by people in the Housing and Food office that I should have no problem with getting what I had requested,” said Madeleine Fontenot, College of Arts and Sciences junior and three-year resident of university housing. “When I finally received my housing assignment for the summer — about a week before we were expected to move out of our current four-bedroom at Traditions East — it said that I would be living in another four-bedroom apartment with three strangers. When we finally received our fall housing assignments on July 13, I was shocked to read that my requested roommate and I were assigned to a four-bedroom apartment in Traditions West with two strangers.”

Sarah Davies, international business junior, said she was furious when she received her assignment, which placed her in Traditions West instead of Traditions East.

“I set up an appointment with Natalie [Macnak, director of OU Traditions assignments] and she didn’t show up,” said Davies. “Jenn Doughty was very helpful and told me I could stay in the same apartment. Not moving is completely OK with me.”

Annis said whenever Housing and Food implements a new roommate-matching system, there may be some problems.

“It’s very obvious we’ve had some problems, I’ll be the first to admit that,” he said. “But I think we are doing a lot as we go forward trying to correct those problems. .”

As for students upset about not receiving the room they want although they have been loyal to university housing, Annis said there is no system of ranking students ahead of another based on loyalty, but in the future, there may be.

“There was no part of the Loyalty Program based on some system of points, saying ‘You’ve been with us for two years, so you’ve got first crack at an apartment,’” said Annis, “I’m not sure that’s something we couldn’t talk with HCSA [Housing Center Student Association] to see if that is something they would be interested in us looking into.”

Annis said some of the residents with complaints will receive a new assignment within the next week.

“About 25 percent of the students should be receiving a new assignment that better reflects their choices,” he said.

Annis said there were lessons learned by Housing and Food Services among the confusion.

“Now, did we learn something about the process and how to communicate better with students? Yes, we did,” Annis said. “We hope students understand that we are doing it for them, we're not trying to be a pain in the butt.”

Update: A previous version of the story left out words from the quote in the last paragraph. Corrections have been made to the quote.