When President of the College James Wright announced the Trustee Initiative on social and residential life last winter, most community members focused not on a promise for a revamped residential system, but on his pledge to fundamentally change the nature of Greek life.
But with the steering committee's recent recommendations for major changes to the College's current cluster system, renewed attention has been drawn to Dartmouth's residential life arrangements.
Though student opinion remains varied about the proposals to create freshman-only housing units and residential clusters similar to East Wheelock, the concept of fundamental residential change is now, more than ever, a viable option.
In a broader context, this is not surprising. Across the Ivy League and among other elite northeastern colleges, many campuses have moved toward a decentralized housing system.
While some universities, such as Harvard and Yale, have long been wedded to the tradition of creating smaller communities within the larger one, others have only recently begun to phase out systems similar to Dartmouth's, characterized by independent Greek housing and discontinuity in dormitory living arrangements.
The University of Pennsylvania, for example, is in the beginning stages of a college system, as is Middlebury College in Vermont. Although Cornell University, whose Greek system closely mirrors Dartmouth's, has made no decision to provide cluster housing options, even Princeton University looks more like Harvard and Yale when it comes to residential life than does the current Dartmouth. And Williams College, where fraternities were eliminated nearly 50 years ago, has moved towards the same decentralized model.
The future Dartmouth: a closer look
The steering committee's recommendations identified several shortcomings in Dartmouth's current residential system.
In particular, the report criticized the shortage of on-campus housing, saying that the difficulty many students have in finding adequate College living space creates a situation in which "they often find that they are not assigned to residence halls of their choosing and opt to move off campus instead."
The committee also noted that many of the on-campus rooms are too small to accommodate contemporary living needs, that the quality of life in residence halls is too variant, and that the dormitories fail to offer sufficient social space.
Perhaps most important, the report emphasized that "life in the residence halls is marked by a stunning lack of continuity, resulting in an ongoing sense of upheaval and rootlessness for students. Testimony from students, faculty, and administrators alike suggested that a lack of residential continuity and identity is a major reason many students are motivated to seek a sense of community by joining [Greek] organizations."
As solutions to these problems, the steering committee recommended the construction of new residence halls that would provide housing for every student that wants it, the "decompressment" of rooms, and the creation of greater residential continuity.
To create this constancy, the steering committee recommended an overhaul of the existing housing system. It suggested exclusive first-year housing, to be followed by mixed-class housing in the sophomore and junior years, and the possibility of new "townhouses" or other living arrangements exclusively for seniors.
Similarly, the report recommends that Greek houses should no longer be used for residential purposes during the Summer term.
The steering committee also proposed the building of a new cluster system that would closely parallel East Wheelock. Along those lines, it suggests that residence halls be enhanced with adjacent social and dining spaces that could be used for "lectures, parties, periodic dining and other gatherings."
Harvard
Harvard University, along with Yale, has one of the oldest residential college systems.
In Harvard's system, freshmen are housed in the centrally located Harvard Yard, physically separated from upper-class dormitories. At the end of the freshman year, however, students can select a block of seven friends. That block is then randomly placed in a single college house where most of them live for the remainder of their college careers.
In fact, out of Harvard's 6,500 undergraduate students, only 160 choose to live off-campus, which they are allowed to do after their first year.
Thomas Dingman, Associate Dean of the College at Harvard, attributed this high rate of on-campus residency to two factors.
"The Cambridge real estate is very expensive and the houses are very successful," he said.
The college houses feature programming, lectures, concerts, movies, and theaters, all overseen by a staff of a resident dean and faculty member, as well as a house council. Upperclass dining, too, takes place within the college houses.
Because house registered parties face strict alcohol regulation, the majority of student drinking takes place in individual rooms and in clubs and bars, according to Harvard student Scott Resnick.
On the other hand, Harvard's Final Clubs, privately owned houses that are unaffiliated with the University and resemble traditional fraternities, are not forced to follow official alcohol policy. The Final Clubs were disassociated from the University after failing to comply with gender equity and equal access regulations over centuries ago.
Today, the eight Final Clubs, one of which admits women and none of which provide living space, are "often seen as sexist," Resnick said. All of them charge membership fees and house a sizable amount of alcohol consumption.
Williams
At Williams College, where a Greek system was eliminated in the 1960s, residential life is unique among the other schools surveyed.
Similar to other universities, freshmen are housed in their own dormitories. Starting in the sophomore year, however, students choose up to six classmates with whom they want to live and, in a system based on seniority, select their residential location.
The result is a housing system based on class, where members of each grade level often live with or near each other.
Among the living options for seniors are the former fraternity houses, where the majority of campus parties still take place. To host a party, though, students must check identifications for under-age drinking and register beer kegs.
"The college in the last couple of years has become pretty strict about the alcohol," Williams student Ben Katz said. "People drink before coming to the parties. They're a lot of small room parties in dorms, with security sweeps, but mainly aimed at first-year housing which is alcohol free.
"Frat buildings have a similar role as the old ones, but there's no institutionalization because [residents] change year to year. It's more subdued, but it's basically the same thing," Katz said.
Additionally, dining at Williams is divided into five dining halls, with one centrally located facility and the others spread across the different housing units.
Tomorrow, our look at the residential and social arrangements at other colleges and universities continues.
