Housing and Dining Services is now offering a different process to re-contracting for the fall semester 2014.

Instead of getting contracts from the Housing and Dining Services or from the resident assistances, students looking to re-contract will now need to go online to re-contract for the upcoming fall semester.

To access the contract, students who are currently in a residence hall or in Greek Court will have to go on to their PAWS account under the student tab. There will be a Housing and Dining link, which will direct the student to the online contract.

While online re-contracting had recently became available, the program was available for incoming students as a pilot period two years ago.

Mark Hudson, the director of Housing and Dining Services, said incoming students were good for the pilot period because it was more of a need for them.

“We knew that we wanted to take care of that. Those people aren’t physically at hand,” Hudson said.

Hudson said this was just the next phase in moving Housing and Dining systems more online. It will eventually lead to having most of their services online saving paper, he added.

“We contract a couple of thousand people, and for everyone of them, you print off two contracts, one for them to keep and one for them to turn in. Those are usually of legal length,” Hudson said.

He added it would save thousands of sheets of paper.

According to the housing and dining website, students should optimally fill out their contracts and send them in by May 1. Those who don’t can expect to see their room assignment letters in July.

Jarad Jarmon can be reached at 581-2812 or jsjarmon@eiu.edu.