In spring 2022, the residence life staff at Waynesburg University introduced a new system to take care of roommate selection, room requests, and residence hall preferences. This new application was called The Housing Director, and it has been carried over to the current semester. 

The implementation of THD was a long-term process that began last year.

“This was an initiative brought in by Matt Pioch when he was overseeing residence life,” said Heidi Dziak, resident director of Burns Hall and assistant director of residence life & housing. “I got introduced to it back in, like, February/March of 2021.”

She went on to explain how she received a week’s worth of training for the app, but was not asked to use it until Jan. 2022. This made some of the learning process “trial and error.” 

“…THD is our housing software that we utilize to do everything housing related,” said Dziak. “So it’s great for information regarding housing.”

THD is also now the service to use when a student wants to select a meal plan or fill out a form involving housing according to Dziak.

“Gone are the ways of pen paper,” said Bruce Christensen, a resident mentor in Willison Hall.

For incoming freshmen, finding a new roommate involves more agency on the student’s part. Instead of listing off characteristics in a form and having residence life & housing pick the best fit, students can now use the built-in search engine and filter by traits they want to see in a potential roommate. 

“It is a much more trimmed down version of our previous operating system,” said Christensen. 

Since all students now use this software, there has been feedback given to the residence life & housing team. According to Dziak, the main piece of feedback came from the fact that some students missed out on the roommate selection form. She said that she will rectify this in the future and have the form available in Jan.

“Utilize those resources. Get familiar with THD, mess around with it,” advised Dziak. “It doesn’t hurt to go look at it.”