Page 6 The Behrend Beacon Coed dorm rooms: the next step in higher education? by Deborah Peterson St. Louis Post-Dispatch Coed dorm rooms are the trend du jour at a handful of East Coast colleges, and, with the typical gestation period for the migration of new ideas in the United States, it may he only a matter of time before more traditional Midwestern schools follow suit. Swarthmore College in Swathmore, Pa.; Haverford College in Haverford, Pa.; Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.; and Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., permit men and women to room together in campus housing, ac cording to a Knight Ridder newspaper re port. Myrt Westphal, an assistant dean and director of residential life at Swarthmore, said the college was prompted to increase its coed options in response to requests from gay and lesbian students who found it uncomfortable to live with members of the same sex. So far, housing administrators at the universities of Illinois and Missouri and Washington University don't see coed dorm rooms on the horizon at their schools. The University of Illinois at Champaign, for example, has coed dorms hut not coed floors, at its campus. The University of Missouri at Columbia has coed dorms, and some of those have coed floors. But both universities also offer all male and all-female dorm options. Both Webster and St. Louis universi ties have coed dorms and dorms with single-sex floors. At Washington Univer [ROCK 107] situ, all dorm hui Wings and bathrooms are coed, hut there are no coed rooms, said Justin Carroll, assistant vice chancellor and dean of students. "It works really well. honestly," he noted. "Women on the floor provide a kinder. gentler environment and the men act more like gentlemen because of this arrangement." Laura Mendiola, I, a senior at Wash ington 11, is a resident adviser in a fresh man coed dorm. She says that living with men and women on the same floor - hut not in the same room - is the hest of both worlds. "I think for the most part the students are very happy with the housing situa tion because they get a little hit of pri vacy hut they also get to develop sort of a brother/sister relationship with the people on their floor." said Mendiola, adding that few if any students living on the same floor actually date one another. But before anyone thinks the Midwest is too conservative, the University of California at Berkeley, which has tried to accommodate an array of sexualities with a housing program called the "Lesbian. Gay, Bisexual. Transgender Theme Pro gram," does not allow men and women to live in the same rooms. Victor Culatta, associate director for residential living at the ultra-liberal school. was surprised to hear about the Eastern schools permitting coed rooming,. "We have coed suites, coed bathrooms and also single sex." ('ulatta noted. "But we haven't heard anything about mixed- gender room 1 4 Al . f 'lir'.'i4 Friday, December 6, 2002 euo The Beacon is recruiting writers for the Spring 2003 Interested? E-mail The Beacon: Semester. confidence, and plenty of time to shower before calculus. to] v(i t!" 110 pri?ttV till:. 'ink; Stuff that bil•ldS '1;t1;t1ll t,:t 1 t ITlrlttittt le', It :hp, yo,,' l llearn that =, 'l , ) vR4 II al3oleaf' t'co, "lirk yi, it feet and be a good ff.., det rcd eat d Irtit ARMY ROTC Unlike any other college course you can take. Find out the meaning of an honest'day's work. Contact Army ROTC about the pay off @ 898.7279. behrcoll@aol.com 0001 m al wow c,IG(I riaker LA t you , Army ROTC 3thusor to (rod out more. And pride, [grit]
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