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September 6, 2002

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Residence hall life offers
more lessons in living

As an incoming first year student at the University of Wisconsin I hoped desperately that I'd have a roommate who looked just like me. I got what I wished for: Jeff from Beaver Dam. He was a dud. On the same floor were Harold from inner city Chicago and Ernest from San Antonio (of all places) - each very different from me. Now they would have been great roommates. A lesson learned. I wasted part of that summer fearing differences rather than hoping for them.

Ironically, some twenty years later, I find that my own Residential Life Office undermines even random chances to integrate diverse students in their first year. We spend weeks in June going over carefully completed matching forms from new students, trying to best pair compatible roommates. Instead, perhaps, our goal should be to match the students who are least alike.

Up for consideration for next year is eliminating the roommate matching form as well as any pre-arranged pairings (roommate requests, athlete pairings) for all incoming first year students. What better time to begin a dialogue about differences than on the very first day - at residence hall meetings when RAs lead discussions on roommate relationships. In bringing unlike students together we can create the opportunity to ask our students to embrace diversity - not just of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion, but also of interests and activities, majors, and social habits.

Interestingly, the idea is drawn from the group housing proposal of last year. In response to recommendations by the Quality of Student Life Task Force, encouraging, among other things, stronger upperclass communities and "self-governance," the Residential Life staff put together a comprehensive departmental plan for the future. That plan included recommendations on long-term facility planning (a new hall and more lounges in current halls), new ways to manage the residency requirement, the Resident Mentor position, and the most public portion of the plan - group housing.

Because of a negative reaction, we delayed implementing a pilot program of group housing to allow time for more conversations about it with students this year.

True self-governance, without pre-established connections or relationships, rarely succeeds in residence halls. In an attempt to allow students a chance to self-govern, group housing seems a viable answer. The concept allows approved groups of upperclass students to have greater flexibility in reserving rooms and designing their own living communities. In exchange, they would be given opportunities to manage how to best follow University policies, (in many cases, without an RA) and be asked to give back to the community, through events sponsored for the hall and the campus.

There were many things about last year's response to group housing that surprised the staff: there were inaccurate reports that students weren't asked their input; unfounded fears that group housing would leave students out in the cold if they weren't part of a group; and rumors that the halls would be filled with uncontrolled Greek-fiefdoms.

What puzzled the Residential Life staff most, however, was that students claimed the proposal would reduce the diversity in the residence halls.

That assertion is curious given that many de facto groups - who rarely mix - populate these buildings already. Successfully getting upperclass students to meet different people through hall programs is a serious challenge for RAs in the upperclass area. There, students must often be nudged to first hall meetings with incentives of receiving telephone directories.

The Residential Life staff wants to improve the on-campus living experience. One aspiration is to purposefully teach the value of diversity to first year students. ... We want students to learn in the halls, not just to live in them.

While residents are quick to embrace the concept of diversity in the halls, understandably, many are reluctant to live it. Experience tells that students will do anything they can to reserve rooms to live near and with their friends. Certainly a good or bad roommate experience can have a yearlong effect. The angst from students who lose roommates over the summer is very real. They resist the idea of living with someone they don't know.

The Residential Life staff wants to improve the on-campus living experience. One aspiration is to purposefully teach the value of diversity to first year students. What is more, we hope to facilitate the creation of dynamic living areas for upperclass students and to allow opportunities for them to learn responsibility and accountability to one another (not just to University staff). We want students to learn in the halls, not just to live in them.

This year we face many important and exciting questions about how our living communities should look in the future. Where do we start? We need to answer the diversity question first.

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