Below, we outline the reasons why Residence Life has mediation as part of its room change policy and how students can obtain a mediation with Conflict Resolution and Mediation.
We sincerely hope that everyone who comes to CRAM with the intention of getting a mediation will have an open mind. We deeply encourage you to contact us before the conflict develops to the point where you feel you have to move. Allow us to help you resolve your differences before they grow too big. We will treat all mediations from the aspect that their is the possibility that things can be worked out and no room change will be necessary.
The following are the steps you will need to take to get a mediation:
1. Contact your hall director or area coordinator to let them know that you may need to switch rooms. Describe your reasons for feeling so. Some issues they may deal with instead of having you work through CRAM.
2. Have your hall director or area coordinator complete the mediation request form.
3. Have your roommate(s) and yourself complete the disputant information form independently. This is essential because it lets us know when we can schedule the mediation. The sooner these forms come to us, the sooner we can schedule your mediation. Each roommate must complete THEIR OWN disputant information form.
4. Once we have received all of the completed forms we will schedule you at the first available time for a mediation. You will be contacted via email and/or phone for the time and place of the mediation.
5. The mediators will already be at the place for the mediation. From their they will guide you through the process.
6. The goal is to come up with resolution that will allow both roommates to continue living together in a happy manner.
7. If it is not possible to come up with a mediation, you may need to schedule a second session to continue working on the problems. Otherwise one of the mediators will sign your roommate move form.
There are several reasons for the implementation of this new policy.
One of the primary reasons for the policy change is that the Residence Life experience, that each student is required to have, is supposed to be educational. In establishing residential halls instead of dormitories, Residence Life has made it a goal to help students learn to live together. This is for both those students who get along great together and those students who do not. All to often in life after college, people face having to live with or near other people they do not like. The mediation process helps those involved learn how to deal with these situations in a positive and productive manner.
Very often, it occurs that one roommate will arrange to move rooms without telling their other roommate(s). This can be a hard situation for the roommate who is left behind. It may result in them being in a single and having to pay a higher boarding bill or leave them wondering why their roommate moved out. Many times it may also result in an anger developing to the roommate who left. All of these are unhealthy and unfair to do to someone. The mediation process ensures that this will not happen to anyone.
Residence life has been studying the correlation between transfer rates of students who move and those who do not. They have found that students who move or students who have a roommate move out, are much more likely to transfer from Truman State University. This indicates that these students do not thrive as well as they might have been able to. The mediation process will help students to air their grievances and discuss what problems they might be having. With this ability, it is believed that many of these students will be able to thrive at Truman State University and enjoy their time here. To back up this claim, it has been found that other schools with similar mediation programs have a lower transfer rate in this area.
Another trend that is seen with many students is that if they move once, they become habitual movers. They go from room to room and never settle down. This causes headaches for many people. It disrupts those who have a roommate move in and then out, it disrupts the student advisors who have to complete the necessary work to allow the moves, it disrupts the hall directors who must oversee the move, and most of all, it disrupts the habitual mover because they never have the chance to settle in. In cases like this, it is often the case that habitual movers continue to move because they do not learn how to deal with the issues involved in living with another person.
Contrary to what most people think, it is expensive for someone to move rooms. The room change process takes up a large amount of a hall director and assistant hall director's time. These people are paid by residence life. All the time that they spend organizing and processing room changes is a financial burden to residence life. What is worse is that the money that goes into this process is money that comes not only from the person who wants to move, but from every person that lives in the residential hall. By implementing the mediation process, hall directors will have more time to spend developing other aspects of residential life and making the residential hall experience more enjoyable for everyone. So while it may not seem on the front that the room change affects many people, it really affects everyone in the hall.