Every fall, over 3,000 undergraduate co-eds move into their Fairfield campus dormitories. Is it possible that one day those men and women will be moving into the same dorm room?
This fall, Dartmouth College opened up its gender-neutral residency options for the first time. Students can either live in one of the 57 co-ed apartments and multi-room suites, or apply to the new “gender-neutral” floor.
The gender-neutral floor, which was created in large part to student demand, is aimed at helping members of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community, many of whom do not feel comfortable living in “traditional” dorms.
According to The Dartmouth, Dartmouth’s student newspaper, while only 13 of the 57 suites will be occupied by co-ed groups, applications for the gender neutral hall far exceeded capacity.
But are there any plans for a similar program at Fairfield?
“The Collegiate Closet,” the 2007 research project completed as part of Fairfield’s diversity grant initiative, lists gender neutral dorms as an integral part of integrating members of the LGBT community into the Fairfield campus community.
Michelle Holmberg ’08, who was part of the diversity project, believes gender neutral dorms are important for those who feel they lie outside the traditional binary gender scale.
“Not everyone feels comfortable with the hetero-compulsive dorms as they are now, and would benefit from living in an alternative living situation,” she said.
Frank Fraioli ’08, who was also involved with the project, agreed.
“Gender neutral dorms are incredibly important in making a comfortable living situation for everyone at Fairfield, not just those who fit the norm,” he said.
Responses to the dorms at Dartmouth have been positive, according to Ashley Cartagena, a sophomore at Dartmouth.
“It’s really raised awareness about LGBT issues, and I’m really glad it happened. I don’t know many [people] who oppose it,” she said.
Jon Hopper, the RA of the gender-neutral floor, agreed on its impact and response. “The campus has been great,” he said. “I haven’t heard anyone claim that this wasn’t a good idea.”
Hopper argued that when it comes to diversity, gender – not race, sexual orientation, religion or ethnicity – is the only allowed discrimination in residence halls.
The gender-neutral dorms hope to eliminate this discrimination, and with it, the pain that traditional residence halls can cause. Hopper brought up the situation of a gay male who does not want to worry about sexual tension with his roommate. Gender-neutral dorms lower that concern.
Hopper said the dorms serve to “question the basis of heteronormativity – the idea that people are heterosexual and that policies should be based on that assumption. That itself is a great asset to the LGBT community,” he said.
The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping those of alternative gender definitions, argues that gender-neutral housing is necessary at all schools with residential dorms.
Their annual report on universities states, “Typical housing presents a serious safety issue and social barrier for thousands of gender non-conforming and LGBT students who reside in on-campus housing.”
This is a theory that is beginning to gain momentum at schools across the country. Dartmouth joins approximately 30 other schools in this growing trend that started at Wesleyan in 2004.
Schools include both public universities such as University of Minnesota, and smaller private colleges including Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Oberlin, Harverford and Swathmore. Both Cornell University and University of Chicago are also currently considering such options.
However, despite the response at Dartmouth and the increase of programs in schools nationwide, there will be no similar options at Fairfield.
According to Deborah Cady, director of residence life, “there are no plans for gender-neutral housing at Fairfield,” she said.
Fairfield residence halls are gender specific by hall or floor in traditional dorms, and the Kostka-Claver rooms are gender specific by suite.
Since, according to the student handbook, members of the opposite sex are not supposed to spend the night in the same room, gender-mixed dorms are not plausible.
While Holmberg agreed on the importance of gender-neutral dorms, she said does understand why the program is not on Fairfield’s immediate to-do list.
“I hope Fairfield considers them, but I think they will be a long time coming,” she said. “There is too much the school needs to work on first before they move to this next progressive step.”
Click to read about Cornell exploring the idea of co-ed dorms
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