HDRL furthers house model plans

As summer comes to an end, students and administrators are closing in on details of the house model.

Under the first year of the new residential model, which will group students into various houses across West and Central campuses starting Fall 2012, residentially unaffiliated sophomores and juniors will be randomly placed into one of 40 unaffiliated houses, said Joe Gonzalez, associate dean for Housing, Dining and Residence Life. Members of the Class of 2013, who will be seniors during the first year of the house model, will be able to select where they are going to live in a process similar to the current Room Picks process.

“There may not be unlimited options, but they will have the chance to pick which house they would like to live in and which room,” Gonzalez said. “At some point, a house might close for seniors, but those numbers still need to be set.”

In subsequent years, unaffiliated students may be able to preference their house, he added.

The decision to randomize the sorting process for unaffiliated students was made this past summer by HDRL, with the input of students on a house model ad-hoc committee led by Gonzalez.

This policy is a slight deviation from earlier plans for the model. Last Spring, administrators imagined unaffiliated students would be able to rank houses in order of preference during Room Picks.

After further discussion, however, Gonzalez said HDRL administrators and students working on the house model decided an element of randomness was necessary­—at least in the first year of the model—in order for unaffiliated houses’ identities to develop.

“Eventually, one of the goals is to provide for independent cultures to develop,” said Duke Student Government President Pete Schork, a senior. “To create interesting, diverse, varied communities organically, in my opinion, you need that initial, random dispersal.”

“This is a one-time deal,” Lisker said. “What we’ll be saying to rising seniors is: ‘We want you to stay on campus.’”

The house model is set to replace the University’s current quadrangle model in Fall 2012. It will feature 75 houses across West and Central campuses, 35 of which are for fraternities and selective living groups and the remaining 40 houses for unaffiliated students.

Gonzalez said the administration left a buffer in the number of selective houses in case a new group wants to apply for residential privileges by late September.

It has not yet been determined how rooms within houses will be assigned, though it is possible it will be an autonomous process for individual houses, Gonzalez said.

Houses will range in size, anywhere from 20 to 90 students. Keohane 4E Quadrangle, which is slated to open in Spring 2012, is a new residence hall that will accommodate two unaffiliated houses. The project was built with the house model in mind.

The University decided it would shift to the house model last Fall.

The selective experience

HDRL, faculty and students also discussed the impact of the house model on selective groups in their summer meetings.

“We needed to identify which houses would be used for SLGs and which houses would be designated as unaffiliated.” Gonzalez said. “And that needed to occur so the Room Picks process for this upcoming year could be designed.”

The group has completed a menu detailing where houses will be on West and Central campuses, as well as which of these houses will be reserved for selective groups versus unaffiliated houses, Gonzalez said.

A map of house locations and notice of which locations are selective or not will likely be released later this week, he noted.

“The fact that this has come up now has been driven by the fact that HDRL has to redo the programming of the room selection system,” Lisker said.

HDRL has broken selective groups into four different size pools, using their respective recruitment numbers for the past three years and student input to gauge a group’s likely size, Gonzalez said. Size pools range from small, medium-small, medium to large. Groups of houses across West and Central campuses correspond with these sizes.

Fraternities and selective living groups will be placed into a house randomly within their size pool, Gonzalez said, but groups will be able to preference Central campus over West. Currently, about 30 percent of West is selective, yet about only 13 percent of Central has selective groups. HDRL wants to close the gap in terms of the number of selective groups on West versus Central, Gonzalez said.

“We want a fair balance between West and Central,” Schork said. “Fears surrounding relocation [to Central] were initially overplayed relative to the final result, especially given the quality of the sections that are being provided on Central.”

Selective groups will be placed into a house in October, Gonzalez said, another slight change from what was planned in the Spring. HDRL’s original intention was that fraternities and selective living groups would not know their house location during recruitment in January.

“But given that HDRL needs to know by the mid-Fall, it is in everyone’s best interest to be as transparent as possible,” he said.

Looking ahead

The next steps in planning for the transition to the house model are figuring out how to communicate feedback from alumni and the community, as well as communicating the changes to the Class of 2015, Lisker said. She added that the committee will also be working with fraternities to determine proper timing for the recruitment process, among the model’s other goals.

Incorporating house dining experiences and a faculty presence are two areas in which HDRL will also continue to work, Lisker noted.

Rick Johnson, assistant vice president for housing and dining, is also part of the house model working group. Johnson could not be reached for comment Saturday and Sunday.

Lisker said the West Union building renovations slated for next year are allowing the University to reevaluate dining and potentially create some dining spaces that are oriented toward the new residential model.

“This is a great change for our housing model, so we want to share the details with the community,” Gonzalez said. “This is something that we want everybody to understand very well.”

Correction: In Room Picks, unaffiliated students might be able to preference Central Campus over West Campus, not the other way around, as an earlier version of this article stated. The Chronicle regrets the error.