Opinion

Coed rooms hit close to home

Gender mixing becomes common as times change

By Pattie Barry

Posted on March 26, 2007, at 12:00 a.m.

The other day I was looking through The Maine Campus’ archives, and I came across a Word of Mouth question from 1967 [well, that era's equivalent of Word of Mouth, anyway]. The editors asked female students what they thought of a proposed new housing policy that would allow senior girls to have a key to their buildings so they would be able to go out and return whenever they want.

Shockingly – to our generation, at least – some of the women interviewed thought this policy was “irresponsible” and that senior girls would “abuse the privilege” and “get into mischief.”

Oh, how times have changed.

More recently, I was looking through an issue of People Magazine and I came across a human-interest story titled, “Freshmen! Get ready for coed dorms.” In it, the reporter described a trend blossoming across U.S. college campuses: Something like 20 colleges have begun instituting a policy that allows both genders to share a dorm room. This isn’t just sharing a suite, like in Patch or DTAV, where men and women have different bedrooms but share a living room and bathroom. It’s the whole kit-and-caboodle: Men and women, sleeping in the same room, with the same door to the outside hall.

I began to pay more attention, recalling ResLife’s policy decision last year to force residence halls to integrate: Boys’ rooms now alternate with girls’ rooms. The probability of that happening here seems plausible but highly unlikely. Then I read further and discovered that the reporter had gone to the University of Southern Maine – one of our own state universities – in order to investigate this campus housing trend.

Comes a little closer to home, doesn’t it?

According to a recent Portland Press Herald article, the reason USM stopped considering gender when making housing assignments was to accommodate gay, lesbian or transgender students who may feel more comfortable living with an individual of the opposite sex. According to all reports I could find, this seems to be working out for them.

Still, I have to be hesitant about the idea and I think that many of my peers would agree with me. According to the Portland Press Herald article, one of the resident assistants at one of the Gorham campus’ dorm halls said that this arrangement is an opportunity to give students the experience of what life is like outside of college. I can understand that. In my junior year, I moved into an off-campus apartment with two guys. I can’t say living with the boys was like what I had expected when I had agreed to do it, but I’m glad that I had that experience and wouldn’t trade it for anything. And, if it comes to it, I probably would share an apartment with a guy again.

However, I see a lot of problems with matching men and women together in double-dorm rooms, not to mention that the space shared in a dorm room is even smaller and less private than what most people are used to. I know some people who have had positive experiences being matched with random strangers in the roommate selection process – which has plenty of potential for improvement, by the way – but the overwhelming majority of my friends switched roommates after first semester of freshman year.

Throw the anxieties of college and living away from your parents for the first time into the mix and I sense a recipe for real disaster, especially for freshmen and sophomores.

I like the way UMaine does things now: Men and women can live together by sharing a suite, but for the most part upperclassmen are the only students able to get into those residences: DTAV, Patch and Colvin. It takes maturity and patience to live with a member of the opposite gender and no matter how good of friends you may think you are, there are a unique set of challenges that you will face. Most students would be better prepared for these challenges if they weren’t struggling with adjusting to collegiate life as well.

If you really, really want to share 100 cubic feet of space with your male or female friend, then my advice is this: Off-campus housing is always cheaper.

Pattie Barry is a fourth-year French and new media major.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.