rlo will offer mixed gendered housing.xml
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Part of RLO will offer mixed gender housing as a living option
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At the end of last semester, Residence Life Office sent out a survey to students
regarding how they feel about living in mixed gender communities. As illustrated above,
72% strongly supported mixed gender halls. Graphic by Jonathan Marchuk
Chris Mayes
Staff Writer
Next fall, students will have the
option to live in mixed gender
communities
When students line up for the housing
lottery this spring, they will have the oppor-
tunity to join new mixed gender communi-
ties in halls across campus.
Last semester, Residence Life Office re-
leased an e-mail survey to all Davidson stu-
dents asking, “How would you feel about the
idea of David-
son College
allowing stu-
dents of dif-
ferent genders
to live togeth-
er in mixed
gender com-
munities?”
According
to Jason Shaf-
fer, Director
of Residence
Life, an over-
w h e l m i n g
“72
percent
of
students
supported or
strongly sup-
ported the idea. So, for me, clearly this idea
is something we should move forward on.
The question for us becomes where do we
pilot it, and how many beds do we make
available?”
Judging the exact number who will
choose mixed gender housing has been dif-
ficult, because while students generally want
Davidson to offer the choice for mixed gen-
der communities, only slightly more than
half of students indicated that they would be
likely to live in a mixed gender hall. Nearly
a quarter of students, on the other hand, are
RLO will offer mixed gender housing as a living option
“unlikely or not at all likely” to opt for it
given the choice.
“What this tells me, is that when we pi-
lot, we have to be careful not to get ahead of
ourselves,” Shaffer said.
“We don’t want a situation where stu-
dents are being forced into a living dynamic
that they aren’t choosing fully to be a part
of.”
RLO will be offering 161 beds in Irwin
Hall, Akers Hall, the fourth floor of Belk
Hall and two floors in the new building. In
addition, students will have the option to
sign up for a mixed gender suite in Tomlin-
son or Duke, if they are willing to sign up as
a group that would fill
the suite.
As in past years,
Martin Court apart-
ments will also be
available to mixed gen-
der groups.
In spite of the no-
table changes this pilot
represents for David-
son housing standards,
there remain some ar-
eas where changes will
not extend.
Specifically, com-
munity bathrooms will
continue to be gender-
specific, double-rooms
will continue to be
single-gender and (most controversially),
no mixed-gender dorms will be offered to
freshmen.
Jamie Durling, a senior who has worked
with the Student Government Association
for some time to realize a mixed gender op-
tion, understands these concerns.
“I’ve met both students and faculty who
were like, ‘This is ridiculous, we’re 20 or
30 years behind our peer institutions.’ And
you know, I get that. My sister is a freshman
on a co-ed hall, and she’s doing very well,”
Durling said.
But on the other hand, he said, “I’ve also
run into former hall counselors who say
something like, ‘I’m glad we’re taking this
slowly. I think there’s a great community
that’s being built on freshmen halls as they
are now—and I don’t know if that would
carry over to a co-ed situation.’”
On the whole, Durling said that he be-
lieves students respect and appreciate the
balanced and incremental approach Dean
Shaffer has taken to this project.
“Obviously there are going to be dis-
agreements,” Durling said.
“I think Dean Shaffer is trying to respect
as many points of view as possible while
bringing what seems to me like an important
change [to Davidson College.]”
And in any case, freshmen halls are de-
finitively excluded from the initial experi-
ment with mixed gender halls.
If the pilot is successful, Dean Shaffer
hopes to both continue and possibly expand
the option — possibly including a freshman
option in the future.
But what, according to Dean Shaffer, is
success?
“Success would be that during the lottery
process [mixed gender] spaces fill up just as
fast or faster than our other spaces. And suc-
cess would also mean that we don’t have to
force-assign anyone to live in a community
who doesn’t want to be there.”
“Success means that during the school
year, [our mixed gender halls] would feel
like the communities on other floors —
where people set reasonable community
standards and live by them, and where peo-
ple feel really good about living where they
are.”
“I can imagine this being a program that
continues to grow,” Dean Shaffer said.
But in the end, “I don’t want it to grow
any farther than what student interest will
allow.”
regards to sexual misconduct and Title IX
[among other things]. “The federal govern-
ment is saying, ‘This is what you’re expect-
ed to do,’ and some institutions aren’t quite
there yet, so I want to be able to make sure
that our department and the people we work
with are able to effectively handle those,”
Sigler said.
Another point of emphasis for Sigler is
emergency response. He wants the campus
to have a strong emergency response team
that can be effective while it waiting for ad-
ditional help to come from outside the col-
lege. “We’re not going to be able to do it by
ourselves,” he said.
In a November interview with the Da-
vidsonian, Student Body President Chris
Ragsdale ’14 discussed the College’s po-
tential to experiment with a hybrid model
of campus policing, which includes more
security officers and fewer sworn officers.
Sigler, however, did not commit to extend-
ing this system of enforcement. He claimed
that although hiring more security officers
places less of a financial burden on the col-
lege and although they do have some of the
same capabilities that sworn officers have,
maintaining a high number of sworn officers
is highly beneficial for a college campus.
“I think sworn law enforcement is able
to take it to the next level and understand
the enforcement aspect of what is involved
in providing security to a college campus,”
Sigler said. “I don’t know that you would
get that with a private security firm.”
“I’m not ruling anything out, nor am I
suggesting that [a hybrid model of police
force is] the direction we’re ultimately go-
ing to end up going.”
Sigler asserted that maintaining a strong
level of diversity in a campus police force is
essential to effective law enforcement.
“If a law officer comes to me that has had
a different upbringing than I’m accustomed
to, it adds so much value to what we’re try-
ing to do with regards to our programs,” Si-
gler explained.
Sigler was pleased with the presence of
several female officers on Davidson’s cam-
pus, saying that females are essentially a mi-
nority in law enforcement. He stressed the
importance of adding people of other minor-
ity populations to campus police in order to
create a highly effective police force.
Sigler did admit, however, that hiring
minority law enforcers can be tough when
considering the state laws by which the col-
lege must abide and the lack of vacant spots
in the campus police force.
“There are certain things that Davidson
College is prohibited from being able to do
by law, which has an impact on my ability
to recruit potential candidates,” Sigler said.
“Are people going to see an immediate
increase of minority candidates and hires?
We don’t have that many spots to work with,
so it’s going to be a little bit of a process,”
Sigler said. “But my goal is certainly to
do that as we move forward, no question.
At my previous institution my goal was to
make sure that my minority representation
mirrored the student body, and we were able
to do that. So I feel every bit of confidence
that we’ll be able to do that here.”
Police chief assumes position
“Success means that
during the school year,
[our mixed gender
halls] would feel like
the communities on
other oors.”
-Jason Shaffer
Director of RLO
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