Editor's note: This is the third in a multi-part series focusing on the future of residential life at Dartmouth.
Despite the opening of new residential buildings this fall as older buildings close for renovations, the Department of Residential Life has postponed its plans for coed housing until the fall of 2007.
ORL was not only hesitant to throw too many variables into the updated housing system, but it also wanted to first gauge the success of its 500 new beds.
"It is really important for us in ORL to understand how students will respond to this new environment, to having beds. We really want to see that without adding too many new features," Dean of Residential Life Martin Redman.
In the fall of 2004, Student Assembly passed a resolution asking ORL for coed housing, which was partially motivated by the requests of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. Redman said that coed housing will eventually take place in limited spots on campus, but he sees many potential problems.
"If it's a coed space and two people move out of a four-person coed space, what is the sex of the people that go back in?" Redman said.
ORL would most likely treat the problem with the same solution used for current living situations in which the remaining students draw other students into their rooms, Redman said. But if the remaining inhabitants cannot find anyone to live in the room, ORL might need to assign students to the space.
"How do I assign that space? I have people waiting for housing but none of them want coed. Then I have two people left in this space who have taken it as coed but now I am going to make it single-sex because I have no one in the coed pot to put in there," Redman said. "Somebody is going to get ticked somewhere along the way."
Redman foresees other issues with implementing coed housing, one of which is the break-up of a heterosexual couple who is living in the same room.
"Relationships have a way of changing over time, and I don't always have the ability to solve that problem in the residential system, so I may need to keep them in that space for a little while," Redman said. "The minute we start assigning people that way there is no escape valve."
Maxwell and Channing Cox apartments are the most likely spaces in which the coed housing program would be established, Redman said, citing the single bedrooms and private bathrooms within these apartments.
"I want private bathrooms and I want private rooms," Redman said. He added that these apartments have a kitchen and living room that would be shared by the four residents.
Because the apartments are a favorite living space of juniors and seniors, starting the coed housing program this fall would prevent ORL from gauging upperclassmen interest in the new dorms and in living in the center of campus.
"Where [will] seniors, sophomores and juniors pick now that they [will] have the chance in what they perceive to be 'better buildings'?" Redman asked. "For example, if a large number of students wanted to live in Channing Cox, would it be because they like the location or because it is one of the few places where coed housing is offered?"
Because ORL is taking financial risks by restructuring residential housing, it will need to closely monitor statistics of on-campus living to determine whether their investment will pay for itself or they will need College subsidies.
"Quite honestly, from a business perspective, I could have no more students live on campus than I currently have now, which means I [will] have 289 empty beds," Redman said. "I am increasing my expenses by well over $3 or 4 million with these new buildings. I need to pay for that, and that's not covered in the money [the donors] are raising."
If not enough on-campus beds are filled by students, Redman is unsure how he will pay for the mortgages of the new buildings and other buildings with outstanding mortgages.
"This $100 million renovation plan is going to take a real strain on our ability to do that," he said. "I can't charge you $10,000 to live here."
Because ORL hopes sophomores who were pushed off campus by a lack of on-campus housing will fill the new beds, it has decided not to require a new class to remain on campus.
"We have chosen very intentionally to keep choice prime. So we are not requiring anyone besides first-year students to live on campus," said Redman.
ORL hopes that most current freshmen will hold a similar attitude to that of Caitlin Angelette '09, who plans to live on campus next year due to housing improvements.
"The new housing does make it more desirable to live on campus," Angelette said. "I think that I will have a better chance at good housing with the new changes."
Upperclassmen, too, are considering remaining on campus due to the new residential halls.
"If the new dorms end up as hot as everyone is saying they will, and they end up as upperclassmen housing, I might be motivated to not find an off-campus house," Kiersten Hallquist '08 said.
Many sophomores live off campus by choice, however, preferring off-campus living to a central dorm room.
"Having experienced off-campus living, I wouldn't have chosen to live in the center of campus," Alyson Guillet '08 said. "But if I didn't know how great it was to live off campus and how happy I am with my housing situation, I might have, as a sophomore, chosen to stay on campus with a good location."
In the initial planning of the new dorms six years ago, ORL faculty invited students to participate in focus groups led by architects that helped create the best design for the new dormitory experience. This planning stage was similar to the development of McCulloch, the College's newest building.
Redman said that when planning the new designs, ORL relied on information it had from running its housing program. By studying which rooms students select last during room draw, for example, ORL figures out which qualities students dislike in campus housing.
ORL also gathered information about dorm preferences from conversations with students who requested room changes, undergraduate advisors, Community Directors and custodial staff.
