The glass ceiling has finally been broken, at least in terms of Duke’s residential life.
Campus Council approved a gender-neutral housing option on Central Campus and a coed housing option on West Campus at its meeting Thursday night.
“This policy is an accommodation without taking anything away from anyone,” said senior Lauren Haigler, ad hoc member of Campus Council’s policy committee.
The options—a result of student support and desire to offer more housing options to present and future Duke students—are projected to be put into place by RoomPicks 2011. The policy, however, is still awaiting the approval of Residence Life and Housing Services, said Campus Council President Stephen Temple, a senior.
Gender-neutral housing will be an opt-in program on Central and male and female students will be able to live in the same apartment. Students who choose gender-neutral housing will be placed in the same housing lottery as other students.
Coed housing at Duke is defined as males living next to females with single-gender bathrooms. This will be put into place as a small, opt-in residential program, similar to the Wellness Community or the East Meets West program. This means male and female students will be allowed to block together and live in the same hall.
The space for coed housing on West is yet to be determined, Haigler said. She added that Residence Life and Housing Services and the policy committee are aware that there is concern over what spaces will be allocated to the program.
“That was a big thing that came up in policy,” she said. “It just so happens that most of the spaces that can accommodate this program are in buildings where a lot of people want to live.”
These policies follow the results of a recent survey put out by Campus Council. Of the 11 percent of the student body that responded, 550 students supported coed housing, but 382 said they would prefer to have single-gender bathrooms.
Campus Council voted unanimously to pass Central’s gender-neutral housing policy. The proposal was supported by 492 students, according to the survey.
“This is one of the more important things that Campus Council will do this year,” Temple said in an interview. “It allows us to serve a niche on campus that hasn’t been previously served and I really hope students will take advantage of it.”
The University is not the first to implement such a policy. Other top institutions such as Yale, Harvard and Stanford universities, Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania offer some form of gender-neutral housing, Haigler said.
“We’re behind and we’re losing our competitive edge in not having this,” she added.
In other business:
The council elected senior Priya Bhat as student co-chair of the Approval Removal Committee under the Collaborative Housing Process, said Public Relations Director Jeremy Ruch, a sophomore.
Bhat was elected from a pool of 11 applicants, he said. The council had received 12 applications, but found one applicant ineligible due to residential affiliation. After postponing the ARC co-chair election from Oct. 1, the number of applications tripled, Ruch said.
ARC is responsible for hearing petitions from groups seeking residential privileges. It will also use the Residential Group Assessment Committee’s scores to determine if groups should be placed on probation or if privileges should be revoked.
RGAC information sessions will be held Oct. 26 at 9 p.m. and Oct. 27 at 6 p.m. in McClendon Two, said RGAC Chair Ashley Jordan, a junior. The sessions are open and will go over the CHP and what the RGAC expects of the selective living groups that are going be evaluated in the Spring, Jordan added.
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