Thursday November 1, 2001

ASUA senators asked at last night's senate meeting that resident assistants be allowed to live without roommates and that dorms that traditionally house a majority of upperclassmen be allowed to remain that way.

Housing proposals that are up for review by University of Arizona President Peter Likins suggest both limiting the number of returning students living in residence halls to 18 percent, and limiting the number of returning students in each residence hall to 50 percent.

However, Associated students of the Uiversty of Arizona Sen. Doug Hartz, who is also a resident assistant, said that limiting the number of returning students in a residence hall would undermine the identity that has been established in each hall.

Hartz referred to Coronado Residence Hall, which houses mainly freshmen, and Yavapai Residence Hall, which he said houses mainly returning students.

Placing freshmen and returning students in residence halls together may be academically beneficial for freshmen who look to older students for advice, though there is no empirical evidence to support this conclusion at this point, Jim Van Arsdel, director of Residence Life and University Housing said at the meeting.

ASUA senators also mentioned their concern about resident assistants being allowed to live without roommates in the future, so that they would be able to talk privately with their residents.

When construction on new residence halls is complete, two years from now, residence halls such as Arizona-Sonora would house two people per room instead of three, Van Arsdel said.

In years when a larger number of people wanted to live in dorms, the rooms in Arizona-Sonora would return to housing three people instead of two in order for resident assistants to remain living without roommates.

In other news, a Universty of Arizona student and alumnus who have lost two friends - also UA students - to suicide backed a Web site to help UA students detect and seek help for their problems.

The Web site is designed to allow students to recognize mental and other health problems that commonly affect college students, such as bulimia, sexual problems and depression, without necessarily talking to health officials.

The site - Ulifeline.org - requires UA students to sign into student link to ensure that users are UA students, but it does not track students' identities, said alumnus Ron Gibori and UA junior Zach Robins, who work with the Jed Foundation, a non-profit group to promote mental health.

The site includes a variety of services from medical schools that allow students to evaluate their, or a friend's health, ask doctors questions and identify who to call on campus for help.

Suicide is the second most common cause of death for people ages 15-25, Giboni said.

"With mental health, when a suicide occurs, you don't hear about it," Giboni said. "When someone gets hit by a car, you hear about it. This is to make sure the loss of Jed and John (the two UA students who committed suicide in 1998 and 1999) doesn't occur for future college students."

ASUA also appropriated $7,845.33 to Alpha Phi Delta fraternity to put on a national step show competition and host a comedian at a fund-raiser in the Tucson Convention Center on March 2.

The appropriation is a large amount for the senate, which has rarely agreed to allocate more than $2,000 at once to any organization this year. The show sold out at the UA last year, ASUA senators said, and they expect more than 2,500 people to attend the TCC show.

ASUA senator Jered Mansell said he voted against funding the show out of consideration for saving funds for other clubs. He also said he believes that with the two passenger vans the club is renting for the night of the show, not many of those watching the show will be college students.

Mansell also said that admission charged at the show would be a fund-raiser, some of which Alpha Phi Alpha would keep and some of which would be given to charities.

"To fund that kind of money for performers when they're going to be giving it away, and making money on top of it is kind of extreme," he said.