Recently, we were notified with the new Hall Allocation Policies.

Many questions were raised, but none of them were answered. This Petition aims for reconsideration of the new Policy, and the reasons are below.

• Diversity

It was said that by not providing halls to non-local students in year 3 and 4 the diversity in halls will be increased. This is a hypocritical statement, since non-local students are of different nationalities, and substituting them with local students not only will decrease the diversity of residential life, but will also increase the existing language barrier between local and non-local students.

• Imbalance and expectations

It was stated in the video that the 1 to 1 correlation between local and non-local students living on campus is imbalanced. Furthermore, the new policy raises the expectations from non-local students to rent apartments and rooms outside campus.

It should be said that firstly, if a non-local student is not given a hall, they are FORCED to spend excessive amount of money for off-campus residence, whereas local students are not obliged to do that due to the fact that they have homes in Hong Kong. Secondly, non-local students come from various countries that are often 5, 10, or 15 THOUSANDS of kilometers away from Hong Kong, and NONE of them have either families or homes here.

• Decision process

They contacted MSSS, SU, and ISA. So let’s go through those societies.

1. MSSS:

http://msss.ust.hk/exco-all/%E7%AC%AC24%E5%B1%8A%E6%89%A7%E5%A7%94%E4%BC%9A%EF%BC%882016-2017%EF%BC%89/

The site cannot be even read in English, which already hints on the scanty amount of international students there.

The executive committee consists fully of Chinese students, meaning that the opinion of non-local students was neglected in this society.

2. HKUSTSU

http://su.ust.hk/about#exco

The story here is similar to MSSS, since the vast majority of students are local.

3.ISA

Almost none of international students know what points were mentioned to the representatives and in what way. ISA was not chosen as the representative of non-local students on campus, and neither were SU or MSSS.

• Choice of students

In my opinion, the decision of choosing the representatives group was not balanced, and according to my own survey, international students are not in agreement with the conclusions of the new hall policies.

• New non-local students will be considered as local students with TT<90 min in their year 3 and year 4.

This was stated in the video with the argument that non-local students are expected to rent apartments in the TKO, Diamond Hill, or Choi Hing areas. So this decision was made on the basis OF EXACTLY THIS NEW POLICY! In other words, the new policy conclusions were looped in the other new policy conclusions.

In my opinion, this decision did not take under consideration the fact that non-local students do not have homes in Hong Kong, and forcing non-local students to leave campus after 2 years of education while substituting them with local students makes the whole process nationalistic.

How can they talk about increasing diversity while TRANSPARENTLY getting rid of people from different nationalities on campus?!

BRIEF CONCLUSION:

1. Hypocritical and nationalistic statements about diversity.
2. Absence of consideration that non-local students do not have the chance or choice to live at home in Hong Kong because they don’t have any.
3. Absolutely controversial decision of considering non-local students as local students with TT<90 min in their year 3 and year 4.
4. Finally, irrational space allocation and imbalanced approach towards non-local students.

It is not a secret for any of us that the hall allocation is a great problem here, in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. It is not a secret that there are many more other problems, such as language barrier, or almost absolute impossibility to participate in societies' lives for non-local students due to the lack of communication.

However, the new policy does not solve any of those problems. Instead, it will increase the language barrier, decrease the diversity of residential lives, and rapidly expand the communication gap between local and non-local students.

IDEAS:

1. Cancel the new hall policy until further total reconsideration with the university students (not with single-nationality-sided societies)
2. Take into attention the difference between local and non-local students and their possibilities of living in Hong Kong. In other words, to understand that whereas local students have 3 choices of living (home, campus, renting), non-local students have only two.

Let's stop mixing students into one big bowl, and let's solve the problem based on the students` differences.