After considering the removal of the organization from its current locale last week, the Office of Student Development announced Tuesday that it will permit members of the Student Housing for Academic and Residential Experimentation group to continue to live in East Campus' Epworth Dormitory.
The dorm has 52 potential bed spaces-40 of which are designated for rising upperclassmen-but the group only had about 32 members at the time student development officials needed to determine housing allotments.
In order to keep SHARE in Epworth, therefore, the University decided to place one of next fall's smaller FOCUS groups-about 20 students who plan to study North Carolinian art and architecture-in the dorm. SHARE has been housed in Epworth since the group was founded 27 years ago.
Engineering senior Aaron Pinero, president of SHARE, said the University selected that particular FOCUS group-whose members will be interspersed throughout the dorm-because of the unique perspective provided by living in the University's oldest building.
Barbara Baker, dean of student development, said she and other administrators convened Monday evening to determine SHARE's fate and thereafter informed the groups' members and Roger Corless, professor of religion and Epworth's faculty-in-residence, of their decision.
Corless, who said the administration also considered altering SHARE's location because it felt the group did not provide a living experience for freshmen comparable to those provided by other residential units on East, offered a favorable response to the University's decision.
"It seems to me," Corless said, "that [the decision] should help Epworth and SHARE to find a new energy and direction in integrating ourselves as a cross-sectional dormitory into an all-freshman campus."
Members of the living group agreed, adding that they hope the incorporation of the FOCUS group into their dorm will result in a more positive image for the residence hall.
"We have had a negative image and that negative image has been completely out of touch with the situation here," Corless said, but acknowledged that members of the University community developed their perceptions of SHARE because the group's participants used to be more vocal than they are now. "By being brought more into the mainstream of East Campus events, it'll help people see what we really are."
Pinero said he thinks SHARE should combat students' misperceptions about the group by becoming more involved with the larger East community.
"I think, considering what SHARE has been through this year, SHARE will be more proactive in getting more information out to other students," he said.
Corless said that after the administration informed SHARE it might have to move, the group submitted its preferred alternatives to the Office of Student Development. Integrating a FOCUS group into Epworth was SHARE's second alternative. Because SHARE will not actively recruit freshmen next year, Corless said the move "represents a trade-off."
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