At its first meeting of the fall semester last night, Student Council discussed a resolution titled “Don’t Sign It!”, an initiative that would aim to alleviate student stress by addressing the issue of early lease signing dates for on- and off-Grounds housing.
“This is something that really does impact every single student at the University.” Council President Matt Schrimper said. “Every single one of us who comes through here has to sign a lease and every single one of us, particularly as first-years, are forced to sign a lease earlier than would be optimal. This is an opportunity to reach out to every single student across the board, to educate them and then ask them to work with us to push back the signing date.”
Council sees the current lease signing process as a stressful problem for University students that needs to be corrected, said Nikhil Panda, Building and Grounds Committee co-chair, who presented the resolution.
“We see early signing as a detriment to the quality of student life because we want to create an environment where people feel at ease and we don’t feel as though this issue does that,” Panda said.
Although off-Grounds housing has increased by more than 45 percent in the last three years, early lease signing dates and on-Grounds housing sign-up dates are coming earlier and earlier each year, Panda said.
The legislation proposes a three-year plan to work to solve the issues of early signing for student housing, Panda said.
“Since we are launching this at the beginning of an academic year we can’t expect results this year in terms of a huge percentage increase of students that wait to sign the initiative.” Panda said. “But we’re going to spend next four and a half months informing students on this issue so that when they go thinking about where they’re going to live two years from now they can look back and think about how many times they’d heard about the “Don’t Sign It!” campaign, and realize we can actually break this cycle ourselves,” Panda said.
The first step to this three-year plan will be to educate University students about the lease signing process.
“I think students should only handle issues with which they are well informed,” Panda said. “We don’t feel students make these decisions with enough knowledge about the situation. In all honesty I wouldn’t sign a contract like that without talking to a lawyer, and there is no way a student has time to speak with a lawyer and speak to their parents and speak to the parents of everyone they’re living with in a month.”
Panda explained that one way Council intends to educate students about lease information is by holding panels and forums to discuss the issue.
“A Council representative will organize forums every two months and have members of Building and Grounds Committee, Safety and Wellness Committee and an administrator from student housing to answer questions,” Panda said.
Aside from working to educate students, Council also hopes to collaborate with the Charlottesville City Council to help to address the lease signing issue. Panda noted, however, that this dialogue with City Council is one of the reasons “Don’t Sign It!” is a three-year initiative.
“We have to go and meet with many different city and state officials, and that just can’t be done in a year,” Panda said.
Council will hold a forum for students to discuss questions and concerns about the initiative prior to voting on the legislation at next week’s meeting.
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