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The co-ed dorm room
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It seems co-ed dorms weren’t revolutionary enough. Now begins the advent of the co-ed dorm room:
In the prim 1950s, college dorms were off-limits to members of the opposite sex. Then came the 1970s, when male and female students started crossing paths in coed dormitories. Now, to the astonishment of some baby boomer parents, a growing number of colleges are going even further: coed rooms.
At least two dozen schools, including Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, Clark University and the California Institute of Technology, allow some or all students to share a room with anyone they choose, including someone of the opposite sex. This spring, as students sign up for next year’s room, more schools are following suit, including Stanford University.
And apparently, the co-ed dorm room arrangement isn’t about sex:
Instead, [students and schools] say the demand is mostly from heterosexual students who want to live with close friends who happen to be of the opposite sex. Some gay students who feel more comfortable rooming with someone of the opposite sex are also taking advantage of the option.
“It ultimately comes down to finding someone that you feel is compatible with you,” said Jeffrey Chang, a junior at Clark in Worcester, Massachusetts, who co-founded the National Student Genderblind Campaign, a group that is pushing for gender-neutral housing. “Students aren’t doing this to make a point. They’re not doing this to upset their parents. It’s really for practical reasons.”
Whether it’s for practical reasons or not, some parents like Debbie Feldman–whose 20-year-old daughter is rooming co-ed–aren’t too keen on the idea: “When you have a male and female sharing such close quarters, I think it’s somewhat delusional to think there won’t be sexual tension. Maybe this generation feels more comfortable walking around in their underwear. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
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Don’t blame racism
“parents like Debbie Feldman” need to tell their kid to move out of the gravy train stop. However, I don’t have a problem with college students getting married while still in school. I never understood why shacking up won’t get you cut off, but getting married will.
That should be; “parents like Debbie Feldman” need to tell their kid to move out OR the gravy train stops.
I recall “married student housing” was a great bargain when both were in school. Off campus housing for marrieds is normally very pricey the closer you get to a campus.
But as for unmarried couples.. I spoze the next innovation will be an on campus day care for all the little “oops!” babies born to unprepared student parents.
This is not entirely related, but it’s a funny story anyway. A couple of my friends got married in college, and both sets of their parents continued to help them with tuition and housing costs. This, of course, is nontraditional for many people.. To them, once you get married, you’re on your own. That’s the price you pay for being a grown-up. Another friend’s mother, who apparently felt strongly that this should be so, reportedly said, “I don’t get it. They’re playing house. It’s like their parents are paying them to have sex.”
Sawgunner,
Campus day care is sooo last decade, even on high schools.
And I’m sratching my head with Kbells, why do parents grumble about what their kids are doing while they write checks. It is amazing how fast kids grow up when they are paying their own bills.
And next will be campus clinics adding a maternity ward, complete with ITV hookups so student mothers can keep up with class lectures.
#4, et. al.
My son married while still in college. I continued to pay his tuition, books and university fees. He and she provided living expenses. She worked while he went to school (She later got a degree from Coll. of Charleston.) When his oldest daughter married before finishing school, he did exactly the same thing for her.
“close friends who happen to be of the opposite sex”
In other words, friends with “priveledges”
If you really questioned the people who support this, you would find it’s not so much that they think the kids are mature enough to keep their friendship platonic, but that they think sex in the context of friendship is OKAY because sex ANYTIME is okay, so what’s the point of seperating people?
“They’re not doing this to upset their parents. It’s really for practical reasons.”
Like what?
Really the most practical (and adult!) thing to do is learn to get along with a roommate of their same gender. Relationships take work, and shacking up for practical reasons doesn’t help at all. They’re laying land minds for themselves in future relationships (with spouses, coworkers, friends, etc.)
In other words, friends with “priveledges”
Yeah, I thought about that too, John. I think Reader’s Digest said “friends w/ benefits.”
All of this talk about “close friends who happen to be of the opposite sex” reminded me of a classic exchange from one of my favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally, which I think is very accurate:
Harry: What I’m saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry: No you don’t.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: No you don’t.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I’m saying is they all WANT to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry: No. You pretty much want to nail ‘em too.
Sally: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU?
Harry: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.
Harry: I guess not.
When I was at Carolina (S.) in 1957, they had men’s and women’s dorms. I never saw a woman in the men’s dorm. Not even in the lobby. The men could go to the lobby of a woman’s dorm and ask the attendant to call one of the women. The men didn’t have attendants. We didn’t know that was unconstitutional.
At Purdue, in 1972, we had co-ed dorms; with men and women on separate floors. (It was a grad dorm, no attendants.) The women and men could go on any floor. (I was once caught in the hall with only my shorts on. She and I thought it was funny, and that I needed to be more careful.) There was visiting.
At USC (Columbia) in 2002, my granddaughter was in a co-ed dorm. A resident could go anywhere in the dorm, but visitors, even grandparents, had to show an ID and have a resident come for the guest. I’ve never heard of co-ed rooms. I was born 50 years too soon!
Debbie Feldman’s assumption that there wouldn’t be sexual tension if her daughter was living with another woman is inaccurate. All female and all male spaces are not free of sexual energy or of sexual conflict.
Luke, I don’t think that’s really true, but even if it is, it’s NOT the same thing.
Graceland, I’ve known several women who had mostly guy friends until they got married, because “men are better friends than women are.” I never figured that one out. I’ve had a couple of guy friends (three, actually, including one in grade school), but I’d never go looking for guy friends.
It seems to me that Christian parents need to be making sure their kids live off-campus. Sure, you lose some of the campus experience, but it looks like the campus experience is getting more and more “worth losing.”
Are administrators nuts? Are parents crazy?
When I went to school at Silo Tech there were not any coed dorms but they came later. The absolute best job I had in college was working the graveyard shift at the desk at one of the the girls dorms.
I got to wake them in the morning, put them to bed late at night, take care of them when they were drunk or worse, pass phone calls to them and intercom them when they had a guest. I also got to screen their male friends. All they had to do is say no calls from Billy, toss him out out and call campus police if he shows up here.
I treated them like they were my sisters and never dated any of them for fear of losing this cushy job that I needed badly.
I don’t get coed dorm rooms unless you are trying to keep gays apart
Remind me in another year to tell my daughter the gravy train stops immediately if she lives with a boy or gets married in college. It is something I had not thought about yet.
I do have a deal with her that if she elopes and doesn’t get married until she has finished her masters degree, I will give her $100,000.
Llama–
Can I have $100,000? I’m still unmarried and starting work on a master’s.
“It ultimately comes down to finding someone that you feel is compatible with you.”
I wonder if that’s why after filling out the profile form for her freshman year, my daughter was paired with her polar opposite for a roommate. They pretty much stoped speaking to one another at the beginning of their sophomore year.
Luke-
“All female and all male spaces are not free of sexual energy or of sexual conflict.”
While this is true, if predominantly homosexual individuals are seen as a minority (and it is accepted that they are), then there would be a vastly decreased likelihood of “sexual conflict” in all-male or all-female spaces, compared to co-ed spaces.
Cheryl D.-
“It seems to me that Christian parents need to be making sure their kids live off-campus. Sure, you lose some of the campus experience, but it looks like the campus experience is getting more and more “worth losing.””
Christians are called to be amongst non-Christians, not just insulate themselves against the sinful world (we are part of that sinful world, after all). Some of the most valuable social time you can get with non-Christians happens in dorms. While I agree that there are MANY negative aspects of campus life, including rampant temptation, it is also a very valuable learning experience for Christians, especially those who have mostly been sheltered from dealing with and helping others deal with different types of sin that they will invariably encounter throughout their lives.
NIGHT TRAIN: Christians are called to be amongst non-Christians, not just insulate themselves against the sinful world.
I’m equally troubled by people who seem to isolate themselves against the world, Night Train: who dare not trust themselves in a secular job or a secular school, who don’t have unbelieving friends except to convert them, who don’t trust their virtue outside of church. Milton: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue.”
BUT … we as believers are also called to guard against temptations and not put ourselves in situations which, from an outsider’s view, would appear comprimising. Sharing a room with a guy seems like a “compromising” situation. I think somebody going to a state school can consider themselves sufficiently encountering and mingling with the world as salt and light; their virtue is being tested in the class and with classmate friends, and surely they don’t need further temptations and trials in the dorm room.
Roommates can be one of the most stressful experiences in college, and we don’t need to compound the problems by constantly guarding against inappropriate relationships in an inappropriate situation.
Night Watch,
I sort of agree. My informal take on college has always been that if a kid goes to a private Christian school, or is homeschooled, through high school, then he should attend a secular college, and vice versa. (A public school student should attend a Christian college–that’s what I did.)
When I was in college, a young man at my church was attending a secular college, living in a fraternity house. He found it very trying, but it was his ministry. Sometimes he was the only sober one on the weekends, but his loving ministry to others spoke volumes. He had a party one weekend for those of us from the Christian college, and one of his housemates had passed out on the stairs and lay in his own vomit. I don’t think I could intentionally put myself in such a living situation, but it was his ministry.
I don’t think anyone should be in a situation where it’s impossible to avoid seeing others engaging in sex, or see the opposite sex indecently dressed. That’s rather what I was thinking here–if sex is such a large part of dorm life that one cannot avoid both the temptation (which one can of course reject) and the sights, then it’s time to move out. A particular mature, godly young person might be specifically called to be in that position as a mission field, but otherwise I’d say “flee temptation” and “flee youthful lusts” would be wiser counsel. I would say that if a young person is called to such a setting, it might be better for him to wait a year or two to attend college, to be a little older when he goes.
Whoops … that was Night Watch’s comment, not Night Trains. Sorry. Too many confusingly similar login names.
Why am I not surprised? This is just another lie that is being fed to our young people about relationships. It will continue to spiral downward. Those of us who see this type of behavior as destructive to future relationships need to make sure we relate that message in a loving way to those in our family who may be facing this situation.
#13 LUKE
Hooey!
This is a great idea - particularly when combined with the talk of lowering the driking age. Not!
We’re a few years out from this scene yet, but with the cost of college compounded by the fact that our family includes three kids one year apart, the opinion of the breadwinner of the family is that college is for preparing for a vocation, not necessarily getting the sort of edumacation that dorm life entails. We do not assume that all our kids will go to college, nor will they be encouraged to go without having a clear vocational vision. If dorm life is more of a distraction than a benefit, it is not a given.
There are more costs than financial involved, but an argument for dorm life as a ministry is weak. We would be glad to support our children if they choose some sort of ministry as a vocation, but not while they’re supposed to be getting an education.
As bad an idea as this is, don’t be fooled into thinking things are better in single gender dorms. I’m not sure which is worse, keeping the same partner in a dorm room all semester long, or having a new guest every weekend. Immorality is already present. Progressing toward co-ed dorm rooms is merely indicative of how far our national conscience has deteriorated. Universities are only aggravating the problem. For Christians living in the dorm, it is absolutely necessary that you have a good roommate. That way you can set rules for your own room, even if you can’t set rules for the entire dorm. If you can’t resist the temptations in the dorm, you have no business living in the dorm (or being out from under your parents’ roof, for that matter).
Ironically, students may dress more appropriately if they know members of the opposite sex will be in the hall. In my co-ed dorm freshman year at Purdue, my wing was male-only and the other wing was female-only. Even during visiting hours, the guys would be underdressed in the hall, because they didn’t expect to meet any girls. If they expected to meet girls, they would be more careful how they dress. The following year I lived in an all-male dorm. From my experience, the co-ed dorm inhabitants were much better behaved. So I prefer a co-ed dorm to an all-male dorm, but I would not want to live on a co-ed floor.
I lived on a co-ed dorm floor last year, and I can’t say that anything particularly novel happened, though I stayed in my room the whole time. Each 4 rooms had its own bathroom so while there were guys and girls on the same floor, the bathrooms were not co-ed.
Co-ed bathrooms are the reason I decided against going to UC Berkeley. I actually find the thought of those worse than co-ed rooms, since from my understanding thus far the co-ed rooms are opt-in rather than assigned. I can sorta see how someone might want to share a room with a male friend, but at the same time, almost all the guys I know are total slobs so that doesn’t seem practical to me.
Lightning Dragon,
Did you end up going to UC Santa Barbara by any chance? Your dorm situation sounds just like the one my daughter was in last year, although maybe it’s a fairly common one. She lived in the off-campus dorms.
No, UC Davis, though I’m sure a lot of the UC schools have similar dorm situations and I think UC Berkeley’s are the exception rather than the rule, as far as I know.
Oh. UC Davis was her other option, but she chose Santa Barbara. I kind of wished she would have chosen Davis, though.