RLA serves pancakes for those seeking roommates

At 5:15 pm on Wednesday, Aug. 28, a line of students waiting to sign in and get their cooked puddles of pancake batter at the Kent Hall of Pancakes, an RLA event, stretched to the Hub and down the hall of High Rise. Students looking for roommates also gathered in the Hub to meet and talk to prospective candidates to share a room with.  

Kyra Douthit 18, freshman of Bridgeport, had a roommate she liked, but wanted to switch residence halls. To assist Douthit’s hunt for a roommate, students attending  the social were given bracelets to mark which hall they wanted to move into. There was even a color for students who did not care in which residence hall they were placed. Douthit’s bracelet was green, meaning she was looking for someone who wanted to live in Kent Hall. Although the pancake feed added a layer of confusion to her search for a roommate, Douthit said “the pancakes were really good.” 

Experienced roommate searcher Sheridan Antrim 19, sophomore of Casper, Wyoming, also was looking for a roommate for the second year in a row.  She said she “had two roommates last year and ended up by [her]self for like two months until the end of the year.” As an unsocial person, Antrim was having a difficult time making conversation with strangers, especially with many people there who were not in search of roommates. The small size of the bracelets identifying students looking for roommates made it hard to pick the seekers out, specifically if students were wearing long sleeves.  

Mariah Nelson, Assistant Director of residence life, said that there were about 50 people looking for roommates this semester. Most of the students searching for roommates either find one at the social or get paired later in the semester. She mentioned that in the past, they had separate roommate socials, not combined with an RLA event. Those socials lacked attendance and tended to leave awkward silence that could now be filled by eating pancakes. Overall, she said the night was going well, and they had already matched some students in the first few minutes. 

The backdrop to the roommate social was the popular KHoP event. Kris Boardman, Resident Director of Kent Hall, said that he expected about 50 people, and over  100 students showed up. 

“We had a bag of batter that was supposed to [make] 288 pancakes and we ran out,” Boardman said. He also said they needed to buy another bag of batter and were ready to serve plenty more pancakes. 

Boardman commented that holding the pancake feed and roommate social together was “A good way to socialize and try to find someone you might enjoy talking with and might enjoy living with.”