- October 2nd, 2006, 8:06 pm
#32831
From the source: http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/st ... ran=205939
W&M's student leaders want 'gender blind' rooms
By MATTHEW BOWERS, The Virginian-Pilot
© October 2, 2006
Parents, if you're still coming to grips with coed dorms, you might want to sit down: Student leaders at The College of William and Mary believe its Williams and Marys should be allowed to share the same dorm rooms.
The student Senate has passed a bill calling on the college administration to establish a voluntary "gender blind" housing option by next school year, allowing members of the opposite sex to live together.
The impetus came not from boyfriend-girlfriend couples but from gay students who complained about uncomfortable experiences living with same-sex roommates, student senator Zach Pilchen said.
The proposal also would open the door for heterosexual couples who want to live together on the Williamsburg campus, said Pilchen, a sophomore from Arlington and the bill's sponsor.
"If they break up, or have an argument, they deal with it," he said. "The fact of the matter is, they're adults, and they can behave responsibly, as adults."
Sam Sadler, vice president for student affairs, chuckled in an interview this week but said he would give no opinion until he saw the proposal.
Students make many recommendations, he said, "and we look at all of those."
Pilchen said students of different genders already study, eat and participate in campus activities together.
"I don't think it's that big a leap to live together, too," he said.
Some colleges agree. Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania has allowed men and women to share about 20 percent of its dorm rooms for at least four years, said Myrt Westphal, associate dean for student life.
Gay and transgender students pushed for the arrangement, she said. Although college officials recommend that roommates avoid romantic entanglements, the school took the stand that it's a student's choice, not a parent's - and has received only a handful of complaints, Westphal said.
"It's been around so long it's just normal," she said.
Two Swarthmore sophomores, Tally Sharma of
Charlotte, N.C., and Sean Nesselrode of Houston, share a room with another woman. The three became good friends last year - "very platonic," Sharma said with a laugh - and the arrangement seemed natural, they said.
"Frankly, I don't think I would room with any other guy than Sean," Sharma said in a telephone interview from her dorm room Friday. "He's one of the most fastidious guys I know."
Her parents were somewhat hesitant at first, but Nesselrode's voiced no concerns, the students said. Other students pause when they hear about the arrangement but soon shrug, the roommates said.
One concession: They hung a curtain from a shower rod to create a clothes-changing corner.
"I think it's kind of silly to limit your selection of roommates because of gender," Sharma said.
Still, coed rooms are rare. Shaun O'Malley, a director of the National Association of College and University Residence Halls Inc., didn't know of any in the southeast region, including Virginia.
Locally, Old Dominion and Norfolk State universities and Virginia Wesleyan College offer coed dormitories but not coed rooms.
At William and Mary, Pilchen is optimistic coed rooms will win. Scott Fitzgerald, a senior from Richmond and the student Senate chairman, sees a better possibility that suites could go coed but with separate bedrooms.
Both agreed parents might be the hardest sell of all.
"I think they would be horrified, to be honest," Fitzgerald said of his own parents. "They're probably going to read this story and say, 'Oh, my God, I don't believe my son supports this.' "
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