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Senate supporets co-ed rooms

In meetings and a speak-out, co-ed rooms have dominated discussions this week

by Nachie Castro

Co-eds captivate Student senators are advocating campus-wide civil disobedience in an effort to establish a co-ed room option in residence halls.

The Senate offered to help match up students who want to room with members of the opposite gender next fall if the College does not pass a policy sanctioning such rooming arrangements.

Senator senior Noah Bopp announced Senate's plan Thursday at a speak-out on co-ed rooms. This idea followed campus debate and discussions at a Student Life Committee (SLC) meeting, a special meeting between the Student Senate and several administrators and the speak-ou.t The senate expressed dissatisfaction with Dean of Student Life and Services Charlene Cole-Newkirk's proposal to allow co-ed suites in the 1997-98 school year, after Noah Hall had been renovated.

Student senators hoped to use the speak-out as a vehicle for prompt guideline changes regarding co-ed housing. The rally was scheduled with the condition that if the administration would establish one section of one dorm for co-ed divided doubles on a one-year trial basis, the rally would be canceled.

This round of discussion on co-ed housing has been the most frenzied over the two years since Senate passed a proposal to allow some co-ed rooms for students who request them.


Cole-Newkirk's proposal


The SLC had passed recommendations to a proposal asking for co-ed housing to be implemented on an experimental basis in a residence hall for the 1996-97 school year.

President Nancy Dye and Cole-Newkirk had both expressed that a plan for co-ed rooms would be feasible, but wanted one which would take into account strategic issues dealing with the meaning of co-education at Oberlin and a discussion of what Oberlin accomplishes as a residential college.

The Senate position was that the administration on a whole has been skirting the issue of co-ed rooms.

The Senate's two-year-old proposal has now passed through the Housing and Dining and Student Life committees. Most proposals at this stage would be up for consideration by the General Faculty (GF).

After the SLC passed the co-ed rooms proposal in March, Dye and Cole-Newkirk asked to talk with the body at its April 5 meeting.

The recommendation the SLC had approved stated that if a co-ed housing option was passed, that no student would be randomly placed in a room with a person of the opposite sex, that students under 18 would not be eligible and that the option would initially be permitted on a small scale in the divided doubles and quads of existing co-ed sections in a few residence halls. Cole-Newkirk offered to propose an alternate plan at the SLC meeting after assessing student demand and speaking with different campus constituencies.

Cole-Newkirk and Dye pointed out at the April 5 meeting that since there's no rule at Oberlin against co-ed housing, a plan to allow it could be made administratively, without the approval of the GF.

Cole-Newkirk has been going to SLC and other committees, as well as administrators, to get advice on how to structure the final version of the plan. Her co-ed proposal as it read when presented to the SLC, begins citing that Senate, Housing and Dining and SLC have all "…made a decision to address a legitimate concern on the part of many students. Oberlin's current housing program does not meet the needs of today's generation."

Her plan calls for a reconfiguration of Noah or South Hall into a collection of 6, 7, 9, 11 and 13-person suites. The proposal deals with the specifics the interior of such housing would entail, and with some of the numerous colleges and universities which have implemented similar plans, and concludes, "This is an important component in the College's long-range planning process, jointly embarked upon by faculty, staff and trustees."

A few members of the SLC did not feel that the proposal, which was given to them at the same time as the results of the recent survey sent to all students by Student Life and Services, represented what they were attempting to accomplish with their request for co-ed housing. Some of the student Senators with seats on the committee were the most outspoken about what the proposal was as compared to what they wanted from the proposal.

After Cole-Newkirk pitched her plan to the SLC, senator senior Hal Connoly said, "I think we should reevaluate housing and renovate Noah. I think we should have co-ed housing options in divided doubles and quads." The Student Senate believes that the co-ed rooms policy should be implemented at the start of the next year.

Cole-Newkirk, a 1973 Oberlin graduate, said that among the reasons she wanted to show some restraint instead of plunging straight into co-ed rooms was because of outside forces who have large stakes in Oberlin, as well as a certain amount of financial pull. The alumni are split, mainly by generation, "The ones before '63 were mainly opposed," said Cole-Newkirk. "The ones from [my time here] were for it, the '80's were against it and the more recent years were for it." She also said that the parents' council expressed concern about the idea.

Some of the faculty members of the committee commented along the same lines as the senators. "There is clear evidence that there is a lot of demand on campus about this [co-ed housing]," said Professor of Politics Chris Howell to the administrators present, "You essentially want to sidestep the rooming issues."

Cole-Newkirk reiterated that while she wanted to be able to implement co-ed housing soon, "I would advocate for each student having their own space."

Others had issues with the potential cost involved with renovating an entire residence hall for the purpose of what would be an experiment. "It doesn't make sense to open a dorm as test case," senator junior Chapin Benninghoff said. "A no-cost option [opening up a section in a existing hall] would be better so we could see on a small scale how this would work." He went on to talk about how students could lose faith in their administration if what they said they wanted was not given to them.

Cole-Newkirk stressed that they would have to trust her abilities. "You have to trust that I, in my experience and education, can go about things without taking a vote." And Benninghoff responded, "There will be outcries, this is a very minuscule response as I see it."

By this point of the meeting, a few committee members had to leave to attend or teach classes, and SLC Chair and Professor of Chemistry Michael Nee then pointed out that whether to continue with the housing proposal that was originally created and try to push it through the GF and the Board of Trustees, or whether to approve some version of Cole-Newkirk's plan, a plan which would not have to follow the same channels as the original proposal, needed to be decided. The SLC decided to reconvene May 10 and attempt to reach a consensus.

Some of the Senators made final attempts to sway Cole-Newkirk's housing idea toward what they requested. "How about if you just give us one section in East or South?" asked Benninghoff. Then a discussion about the structure came about as the committee and Cole-Newkirk discussed possible logistics of co-ed divided doubles. A member pointed out that the doubles only have one access doorway, so only one resident would have complete privacy. "It seems to me the closest things in this proposal are quads," said Professor of mathematics Robert Bosch.

Cole-Newkirk said she felt SLC members liked her proposal. She also said that some people were probably surprised by the proposal, as they had not seen it before.


The Senate meeting


Since a Student Senate proposal set off the discussion about co-ed housing which subsequently brought up concerns in the Senate that the administration has not been taking the student representatives seriously. In response the Senate organized a speak-out for co-ed rooms for Thursday afternoon in order to present the student body with an alternative plan which they had formulated.

In the Senate meeting on Sunday the issue of whether or not the administration was dealing with what the Senate wanted them to deal with arose.

Senator Sophomore Andreas Pape said that the administration proposal for co-ed living involved renovating Noah to create co-ed suites. "This did not address the issue," said Pape.

"Somebody wants to create suites so there's more co-ed housing.… I'm kind of pooped about that.… I don't understand how Dean Cole's proposal is different from what we have now," said Kaye. Blair Heiserman, senator sophomore, said, "We're getting screwed by the administration. The co-ed rooming proposal has gone down the toilet."

After the discussion wound down, Bopp said, "We should ... organize a campaign with speakers and posters...We need to have a speak-out about this ... We need a task force to organize this."

Heiserman said he thought a letter regarding the Senate's response to co-ed rooms should be written to Cole-Newkirk, dean of student life and services.

The speak-out and letter were planned during the Senate's break-up into work groups. It was decided that Bopp and Senator sophomore Marissa Demetrius would be planned speakers at the speak-out. Demetrius said she would call local and national media to get the event broadcasted. "This idea of making a big deal out of it is the Oberlin way," Demetrius said.


Special Senate meeting


On Wednesday Senate met with Dye and several other administrators to talk about co-ed housing. Dye and the senators expressed very different views on the existence of co-ed housing. Dye spoke in support of Cole-Newkirk's proposal to renovate Noah and build new rooms in it sufficient for co-ed housing. Dye said Cole-Newkirk's proposal is a strategic one. Some senators disagree. "Many people think of this not as a strategic issue but as a stalling tactic," Demetrius said.

Dye said repeatedly Wednesday, as she has said in interviews over the past few weeks, that she wants discussion on co-ed housing to move into the strategic planning realm, where the College community evaluates the purposes and practices of co-ed living and what it means to be a residential college.

"Coeducation is about gender equity at its base. I don't see any way in which this furthers gender equity," Dye said. "We have no evidence that says the best way to achieve gender equity is cozily in a dorm room."

Dye also said students who want to share a room with a member of the opposite sex can do so in off-campus housing, where they can "worry about the rent and worry about the utilities and be grown-up."

"The College is not in the business of regulating sexuality. I don't understand why you want the College to formalize this," Dye said.

Bopp said that if the College is not in the business of regulating sexuality, it could establish a "don't ask, don't tell policy" asking students to state their gender on housing applications. Dye responded, "We're too conventional to leave off gender from the housing forms."

Dye said she had not seen a copy of the rooming proposal until the April 5 SLC meeting. She also said that she was under the impression that the Senate was asking for what she calls a "postmodern, genderless society," and found that was not what was contained in the proposal. She added that she thought discussions in the Senate and SLC have ignored the issues essential to the question of whether to allow co-ed rooms.


Speak-out


The Speak-Out for Co-Ed Housing occurred Thursday afternoon on the steps of Wilder. Bopp spoke first, claiming that the reason Senate was holding the rally was that the administrative response to Senate's co-ed housing proposal "was pathetic," and "shows a lack of faith." He said, "If what I've said is common sense, then what we need is common action." Bopp quoted past leaders such as Malcolm X, Henry David Thoreau and Frederick Douglas throughout his speech, drawing upon ideas of civil disobedience and getting what you want.

"In the history of the college not one person's been punished for living with someone in a co-ed room," Bopp said, and encouraged anyone who wanted to live with someone of the opposite gender in a residential hall to sign up on a list Senate was passing throughout the crowd. The Senate is planning on circulating their own version of Fussers, the campus telephone and address directory, next year, one which will have the phone and room numbers of people in the places where they are actually residing. "Widespread civil disobedience will give us co-ed rooms on a larger basis that what we originally asked for," Bopp said. The senators then began to circulate the sign-up list throughout the crowd and a few people signed up as prospectives to live in the Senate-arranged rooms.

Senior Ryan Maltese one of a handful of students to speak at the rally, said, "I don't live on-campus anymore, but I've had co-ed rooms since I've been here. That's just the way it is."


Review staffers Karen Medlin and Geoff Mulvihill contributed to this story.

Photo:
Co-eds captivate: Student Senate sponsored a speak-out on Thursday to pressure for co-ed rooms on a trial basis. The speak-out followed debate on the issue started by senate. (photo by Michelle Becker)


Oberlin

Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 124, Number 23; May 3, 1996

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