Students yesterday largely welcomed Resident Life’s Wednesday announcement that mixed-sex housing would come to campus apartments on a trial basis, a move that could mark the most dramatic change to housing policy since 1968.
But rather than the controversy that accompanied the opening of co-ed dorms nearly 40 years ago, most students expressed keen interest in sharing living space with the opposite sex, saying the change would largely reflect – not pioneer – societal shifts underway since the sexual revolution called gender norms into question.
“I don’t get along with girls anyhow, so why not?” freshman engineering major Lauren Fuller said. “Most of my friends are guys.”
Resident Life’s experiment is hardly a common one, however. Most state universities still do not allow men and women to share college apartments or dorm rooms, and among this university’s peer institutions, only the University of California, Berkeley has waded into a mixed-sex housing trial. So when, in fall 2008, men and women begin living together in some South Campus Commons and University Courtyards apartments, neighboring state institutions will likely take notice.
Mixed-sex living arrangements are more common among private liberal arts colleges, such as Oregon State University or New York University, but just how next year’s trial will be implemented is unclear. Resident Life has offered no details on how many apartments or how many students will be allowed to enroll in the pilot program, which has no fixed length.
If the trial is successful, university administrators and the University System’s governing board, the Board of Regents, will have to approve the policy.
Resident Life made the decision after a survey released this fall revealed that 77 percent of students would support the measure, and the Residence Halls Association expressed similar overwhelming support.
For freshman physics major Matt Adams, the arrangement was only natural.
“It’d just be like living at home,” he said. “I live with an older sister, a younger sister – you just have to respect the person’s boundaries.”
But if the issue hasn’t become a hot topic among cultural conservatives who have grown used to public universities’ co-ed dorm offerings, it’s become a rallying cry for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates, who say transgendered students need the option. This university was left out of the Advocate College Guide For LGBT Students’ ranking of the top-20 gay-friendly schools because it lacked mixed-sex housing.
Cultural conservatism or LGBT issues aside, boyfriend-girlfriend issues were more on the mind of senior computer science major Kyle McKillop.
“It’s just always going to make it more awkward when there’s a relationship involved,” he said. “I’ve had friends that have lived with their girlfriends after they’ve moved out of their dorms who broke up. It was a bad situation.”
It’s still unclear whether the historically conservative regents will be willing to accept more widespread change. Regents Chairman Cliff Kendall has expressed concerns about the project in the past, especially when students who preferred to live with the opposite gender could live off-campus. Several regents did not return calls for comment last night.
Resident Life Director Deb Grandner on Wednesday recognized the policy’s controversy, adding that she was unsure how the public would react to the initiative.
“I’m thinking about public impression, and I’m uncertain what that impression will be,” she said.
Grandner has already received one phone call from a concerned parent, but at the meeting she stressed the importance of including safeguards into the trial that would help ease the policy into practice. Before any student can enroll in the program, the guarantor of their lease – generally a parent – will have to sign off.
Resident Assistants on mixed-sex floors will receive special training, and RHA President-elect Sumner Handy said the RHA might consider other policies to perform background checks on students who apply.
Contact reporter Ben Slivnick at slivnickdbk@gmail.com.
