Zeke Adjusts to a Co-ed Lifestyle
by Matthew Green
In the lounge of Zechiel residence hall a female student studies beneath an
empty wall where there once hung a poster of a woman in a bikini. No one would
disagree that things have changed around here a bit this year: it’s quieter,
the public spaces are cleaner and oh yeah, it’s co-ed. Currently, 21 men
and 16 women live here and most of the bathrooms are fair game for anyone who
needs to use them.
Last year, when the Housing and Dining Committee ratified a proposal to make
Zeke, as it is popularly known, into a co-ed residence hall, to go into effect
at the beginning of this academic year, they also did away with the last all-male
living space on campus.
Zeke had long been considered the closest thing to a fraternity at Oberlin.
Besides its having been all-male, a large number of its residents were athletes,
many of whom belonged to the football team. Furthermore, most Oberlin students,
including former Zeke residents, would generally agree that the dorm’s
atmosphere and social environment were noticeably different from the rest of
campus.
During spring semester of last year, Zeke was pushed into the campus spotlight
after incidents of violence and vandalism and then a recurrent campus discussion
of “sportsphobia.” Several student groups on campus voiced concerns
with the mentality and activities that were, in their view, encouraged by the
dorm.
The Housing and Dining Committee, however, claimed that
the decision was made before these issues emerged and was based primarily on
logistics, not politics.
“It came down to the space issue,” Donita Pace, Area Coordinator for
residence halls in North Campus, said, noting that the need for male space wasn’t
strong enough. According to her, no more than 21 people a semester ever requested
to live in Zeke, which can house as many as 43. Many of its residents had not
chosen to live there. The decision was also made in response to the increasing
number of female students on campus and the growing need for space in which
to house them.
The transition to co-ed living seems to have been relatively smooth and painless.
Already in the third month of its new existence, the dorm and its residents
have faced only minimal problems and disagreements, such as the decision to
make the bathrooms co-ed, with the exception of the shower areas. There seems
to be an overall comfort level and a lack of gender-based tensions.
“They have their incidents just like anybody else. It’s not like it’s
a heaven now that it’s turned co-ed. But there are a lot less incidents
then we anticipated,” Pace said.
Sophomore Laura Wallerstein is Zeke’s first female RA. When she applied
for the position last year, she put Zeke down as her fourth choice. “I
kinda put it as a joke,” she said, not knowing at the time, that the dorm
would soon be co-ed.
Wallerstein has enjoyed living and working in Zeke thus far. She has encountered
few incidents or concerns among her residents. “There’s that sense
of ‘yeah, this is going to be a controversial thing,’ but people who
live there don’t feel that controversy. There isn’t that sentiment
on campus that we’ve destroyed something.”
The dorm’s residents still predominantly consist of athletes. According
to an assessment by Wallerstein, who plays three different sports throughout
the year, male and female residents are involved with a variety of College and
club sports teams. Nine football players presently live there.
Wallerstein, who has helped form a hall council that is still in its initial
organizational stages, emphasized that a community still exists within the dorm,
one that is not gender segregated. “We’re definitely able to coexist,”
she said.
Nevertheless, Zeke “definitely has a different feel,” Wallerstein
said, noting that the lounge area is significantly less social than it was in
previous years and that the overall mentality that characterized the dorm is
now not as prevalent. A poster of a women in a swimsuit can still be found on
a bulletin board in the guy’s hallway, but it is smaller and out of direct
view. “With Residential Life’s decision, we made the best space we
could,” Wallerstein said.
While many students have voiced their support of the administration’s
decision, there exists a contingent on campus who continue to oppose and resent
the transition. Much of the issue comes down to whether or not it’s necessary
for male students to have the option of living in a single-sex hall on campus
that would also serve as a safe space. Although several dorms have all-male
halls and sections, such as East and Barrows, there is no male equivalent to
Baldwin, an all-female program house, or Old Barrows, an all-female residential
co-op.
When ratifying the proposal to make Zeke co-ed, Housing and Dining decided that
such a space was not necessary. “I don’t think the men of Oberlin
campus feel they need a safe space,” Pace said. “Mostly the old Zeke
was like a locker room. It wasn’t a safe space,” she said.
Some students however, both male and female, have spoken of the importance for
a separate all-male living space. “I would like to see the boys have their
space,” Wallerstein said. “The football team is ostracized enough
as it is.”
Adam Miller, a sophomore and football player who lived in Zeke last year, said
there was a lot of opposition to the decision among the members of his former
dorm. He noted that the resentment among residents came not so much because
of the decision to make it co-ed, but because of the feeling that something
important was being taken away from them.
Miller described Zeke as a place where football players felt comfortable and
enjoyed spending time. Since last year, many have moved out. “Last year
that’s where you’d go to hang out,” he said, noting that now
the football team is far more spread out across campus and is unable to get
together as easily.
On the importance of having an all-male living space, he
said, “I don’t think it’s necessary, but some people did …
Zeke was a safe space. It followed its own rules. It stood for [the residents]
point of view.”
Junior Mike McClendon lived in Zeke for two years and moved out at the end of
last year. “I was rather upset by the decision to go co-ed. Pretty much
everyone in the hall had their own reasons for opposing the change, but we all
agreed on one thing. We were not opposed to co-ed living. We opposed an act
whose intended effect was to break up a community unique to Oberlin’s campus,”
he said, challenging the administration’s claim that it was an issue of
filling space. “There were no empty beds. Everyone wanted to be there.”
McClendon added that both he and other residents were largely excluded from
the decision-making process, making the transition, in his view, unfair.
“It’s hard to really quantify the ‘Zeke experience.’ If more guys knew what Zeke added to its residents’ college experience, there would have been far greater outrage,” he said, noting that he felt Zeke was not only a safe space for male athletes, but was also both racially and socially diverse. “I would bet we were more diverse than any other dorm,” he said. “Hell, my neighbor was a hardcore Zeke boy and a bigwig in the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Union.”
Copyright © 2001, The Oberlin Review
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