When junior Lexy Kendall lived in the residence halls her freshman year, she encountered a problem that hadn’t been on her roommate placement questionnaire. It wasn’t an argument over music or a messy room. It was Kendall’s sexual orientation that ended up being a problem and caused her to have to find a new roommate for the year.
Kendall identifies as a lesbian, though she didn’t when she entered college. However, University Housing is introducing a step toward a solution to Kendall’s situation: a gender neutral residence hall, starting fall 2009.
The hall will be located in Wing B of Carson Hall and have the capacity to house approximately 20 students, Assistant Director of Residence Life Grant Schoonover said. The hall will only be advertised to upperclassmen, but freshmen with pressing concerns could be allowed in as well, he said.
The hall could serve many kinds of students, Grant Schoonover said, including gay or lesbian students who would prefer to live with people of different genders, students who are transitioning between genders or students who want to live with a significant other or a sibling. “Gender inclusive housing is really for all students,” he said. “It really benefits all students.”
The plan for the hall began last year, between Director of Residence Life Sandy Schoonover and Assistant Director of Student Life Chicora Martin. Grant took over the project during summer 2008.
Martin said she got the idea for a gender inclusive hall after listening to requests from students. They told her they “wanted a space to live with the roommate of their choice,” and this is a way to give them that.
“Students, when they move off campus, live with whoever they want to live with,” Martin said.
Gender inclusive halls have worked at other schools. Oregon State University has had one since 2007, said Eric Hansen, associate director for housing and dining.
The program has received good reviews from students and national attention, he said, although “the numbers aren’t as large as we anticipated originally.”
At the University of California at Berkeley, students living in gender neutral housing must take a class on societal gender constructs, said Troy Gilbert, director of academic services in housing.
Berkeley’s gender inclusive program has been successful, he said, but like Hansen, said it drew in very small numbers, nearly all upperclassmen.
Overall, the residence halls need to be more sensitive to gender and sexual orientation inclusivity, some students said. Kendall said the roommate questionnaire should have asked either about sexual orientation, or at least asked about students’ views on sexuality.
ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz said all the residence halls need to be more gender-inclusive, not just this one. University Housing needs to increase its number of gender neutral bathrooms, “in every [building], if not every floor,” he said.
The planners of the University’s new gender inclusive hall hope this is the first step in the direction Kendall and Dotters-Katz would like to see.
“Right now our housing system operates in a traditional gender binary and that in itself makes some people uncomfortable,” Grant Schoonover said.
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