Men and women may soon have the chance to get a whole lot closer—in housing proximity at least.
Campus Council heard a presentation on behalf of gender-neutral housing policy during its first meeting of the semester Thursday. The terms of a student survey on gender-neutral housing were also proposed.
“Duke has been very accommodating to me personally,” said senior Lauren Haigler, an ad hoc member of Campus Council’s policy committee. “We need a place on campus for gender-neutral housing so that everyone is accommodated.”
Haigler, with members from the subcommittee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trangender and Queer Life for the 2010 Committee on Gender, proposed a ballot to the Council that will gauge student reaction to and interest in gender-neutral housing. The survey will hopefully be available to students sometime next week, said Campus Council President Stephen Temple, a senior.
If enacted, same-sex roommate pairs could live in rooms adjacent to roommate pairs of the opposite gender, Haigler said. The policy could also allow co-ed bathrooms or co-ed housing, which means male and female students could live together in the same dorm room or apartment. Gender-neutral housing would be an “opt-in” housing option, comparable to Wellness Living/Learning Community or the Women’s Housing Option, Haigler added.
The gender-neutral housing initiative is partly a result of a controversy the University faced in 2007. A transgender student was forced to leave a female residence hall and move to a single room with a private bathroom after a parent of another student expressed concern.
“There wasn’t enough student choice in the matter,” said Chair of the Committee on Gender Michelle Sohn, a senior and a member of The Chronicle’s independent editorial board. “That made for a lose-lose situation.”
Duke Student Government endorsed gender-neutral housing in March. Temple said he is excited to see the campus’s response to the survey, adding that he hopes it will allow Campus Council to move forward with the policy with confidence.
This is not to say that passing the policy is contingent just on student opinion, said M.J. Williams, director of housing accommodations, administration and finance for Residence Life and Housing Services.
“The issue that you will face is the liberal-mind thinking of the students that are here and the conservative-mind thinking of parents,” she said. “Keep in mind that parents pay the bills and still have a voice.”
More than 50 schools nationwide have a gender-neutral living option, though some feature a parental veto, Haigler said. She also emphasized that this issue is more about accommodation than anything else and noted that this living option is probably best suited for Central Campus.
“The goal for this year is to get some sort of gender-neutral housing policy on campus,” she said. “My big thing is accommodating everyone without encroaching on someone else.”
In other business:
Facilities and Services Committee Chair Douglas Hanna, a sophomore, reported that Campus Council purchased four additional ice machines—for a total of six—that are now functional throughout West Campus residence halls. The ice machines were purchased for $47,000.
Campus Council had originally planned on buying just two machines, but when a $20,000 order of new furniture for Few Quadrangle was canceled over the summer, FSC decided to buy additional machines with the remaining funds. FSC still came in under budget for the year by $10,000.
“We went through the University ordering procedures [for the furniture],” Hanna said. “My guess is that the architect didn’t approve them visually.”
He added that this incident will lead to a larger effort to make contingency plans for facilities projects in case something like this arises again in the future.
A reverse vending machine will be installed in the Wannamaker Dormitory basement within the next three weeks, Hanna added. The machines compress aluminum cans, providing prizes at random for students who use the machine to recycle. They were leased for three years at a cost of $7,200.
“It’s essentially a beer can slot machine,” Hanna said.
Campus Council is also sponsoring Endless Summer from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at the Central Campus Pool. The Homecoming Pep Rally is Sept. 24 from 4 to 7 p.m. on the Main West Quadrangle and will feature the band Fastball.
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