Campus Housing

Colleges and Universities A-Z Williams College
1

<p>Another poster suggested that a discussion of housing at Williams be moved to another thread, so I thought I would start this one, because I have a number of questions about how the current system works and how the proposed new one is supposed to work. I attended Williams in the 1970's, and it sounds like the current system for upperclass housing is very different from when I was there. </p>

<p>Could someone (haon?) explain the existing and proposed systems? Will the proposed new system affect the freshman entry system or just upperclass housing? If it will revert to the system we had in the '70's, it will be much easier for me to explain to my daughter, who will be applying to the class of 2010.</p>

<p>Also, as an aside regarding the freshman entry system, I lived in Morgan, and I never felt I had any trouble meeting upperclassmen or other freshmen from the other entries in my dorm. Of course, our opportunity to meet upperclassmen was made easy by the steady stream of older guys who said they had had our suite the year before and wanted to meet the current occupants. Never mind that the suite had been occupied by three girls the year before and not by any of the 20 or so boys who claimed to have. We also had a lot of interaction with the members of the other three entries in Morgan, and we remained close friends with many of them well beyond college.</p>

2

<p>NCEph:</p>

<p>The current system is simply a campus-wide lottery and room draw. Seniors draw the highest numbers, followed by juniors, then sophmores. The student with the highest number picks first and so on and so forth.</p>

<p>There are provisions for blocks of students (maybe as many as eight) to pick rooms together in a dorm. Or, friends can try to pick rooms near each other on an informal basis.</p>

<p>Because it is the least desirable housing, 70% of the sophmore class (bad lottery numbers) lives in Mission Park. A similar percentage of the junior class lives in Greylock Quad. Seniors get the desireable housing: row houses co-ops (various converted residential homes the college has purchased over the years), etc.</p>

<p>I understand the new anchor house proposal, but I've never heard anyone state the motivation for the change. Under the anchor house proposal, students would be randomly assigned (typically by entry) to one of five clusters of houses around campus. From that point on, they would participate in lotteries only within their cluster. The various entries in Mission Park would be divided up between two clusters.</p>

<p>The current campus-wide system is pretty typical for LAC's, I believe. Swarthmore has the same system, although it has some key differences, all designed to increase the mixing of students and equalize the quality of housing each student enjoys (or not!) over a four year period. </p>

<p>I, personally, think that the housing options at Williams are one of its strengths, especially the option for the "off-campus" style housing operated by the college. As far as I can tell, Ephmen like the housing system at Williams. So, I'm really not clear where the pressure to change it is coming from. My hunch is that there is an unspoken feeling from the adminstration that there is too much de facto self-segration with this "type" of student living there and that "type" living here. Maybe Haon can illuminate the motivations.</p>

<p>I'm with you on noting the irony. The new anchor house system is actually very similar to the system in place back in the 1970s, which in turn was an attempt to provide a randomized social affinity group to replace the fraternities that had just been given the boot, over the strong objection of the student body.</p>

3

<p>Is the proposed random assignment to housing clusters going to involve freshmen? I couldn't tell from what you said. I didn't know if the idea was to try to give freshmen some affiliation with an upperclass social unit so that freshmen living in a particular freshman entry might be affiliated with say Dodd House for social purposes (kind of like they do at Yale?). </p>

<p>You've written previously of some sort of housing segregation that results from the current system. From what you've said here it sounds like it's just segregation by class, but I think something you wrote elsewhere suggested that it might be by sport or some other factor. If the lottery numbers are assigned by class, how would the hockey team all end up together? Or is that not what you meant? Sorry if I'm being a bit dense in understanding the current system. When we visited last summer, the tour guide talked really fast about how the housing lottery worked, and it wasn't until a while after the tour that I realized she was describing a system that was different from what I had experienced.</p>

<p>I never found Mission Park to be so awful. That's where I was assigned after freshman year. I guess I was more focused on the people than on the physical aspect of it, and I had a lot of friends there. Among the advantages over at least some of the other houses was not having to go outside for meals in bad weather. Of course, the trek up and down the hill in front of MP was treacherous in icy conditions. I guess it would have been nice to be able to try the other housing options.</p>

4

<p>I think under the original proposal freshmen entries were going to be assigned to clusters, but this was recently revised, and freshmen would now be assigned to clusters in the spring of freshman year. Haon would be the expert on this.</p>

5

<p>The college just completed a big renovation of the Mission Park dorms, reconfiguring interior space so that it was a much more popular draw than it has been in the past. It was my daughter's first choice with her Sophomore friends, but enough Juniors wanted MP that she ended up in Greylock. Apparently the new common rooms in MP are really great, and are a large part of the new popularity, if I understand it correctly.</p>

6

<p>I believe that the current proposal is to randomly assign each freshman entry to an anchor house cluster affiliation sometime during second semester, before the room draw. There would also be a one-time opportunity during four years at Williams for a student (alone or with a block of friends) to opt out of their anchor house affiliation and be randomly assigned to one of the other four anchor houses.</p>

<p>As for self-segregation, it happens in any wide open lottery system if, for example, the lacross team or the African-American Student Group or the rowdiest hard-core drinkers on campus decide ahead of time to select rooms in the same dorm. I don't know if this is perceived as a problem by the Williams administration or not. (It is widely viewed as a problem by many academic adminstrators across the country). However, there are hints in the various anchor house rationals I've read that this may be a concern. With random assignments to freshmen entries and random assignments of entries to one of five clusters, you make it almost impossible to engineer de facto segregation in the housing lottery. I will defer to Haon on the official driving force behind the anchor house proposal. Most of what I have read seems to have an element of beating around the bush.</p>

<p>It seems that the most vocal opponents of anchor house plan are students who have self-selected into what Ephmen call "The Odd Quad". This is the collection of dorms across Route 2 -- Fitch, Prospect, Currier, East College, Fayerweather. It has long been an enclave of somewhat non-traditional Williams students: the artsy crowd, the theater crowd, the quiet studious non-party crowd, maybe even the gay students. Many of these students aren't very pleased with the idea of being forced into the general population, so to speak. Maybe Haon could shed some light on the the Odd Quad dissenters.</p>

<p>Here's an Ephblog comment that addresses the Odd Quad issue:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ephblog.com/archives/001548.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ephblog.com/archives/001548.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>On Mission Park: The complaint has always been that each suite is like a self-contained cellblock with doors at each end. In a "normal" dorm, you might walk down a hall past 20 people in their rooms. In Mission Park, you see the six people in your little suite, but don't routinely see anybody else (except in the stairwells). I didn't really mind it myself. Blocking into a suite with close friends wouldn't be too bad.</p>

7

<p>I was an "Odd Quader" for two years (the most beautiful room in Currier - we got #2 in the lottery!)just at the time it was beginning to self-segregate. (My first year there I lived next to four acid-tripping ice hockey players whose fathers were all high mucky-mucks in the military-industrial complex, but they left the Odd Quad as soon as they could!) It was also the tail end of the fraternity error (yes, a Long Island pun), and we were all randomly attached to "anchor houses", in my case, Perry (though, in those dark ages, there were still legacies by houses, which had been frats, only they weren't frats any longer, but one still kept one's frat legacy (???)). We ate all our meals at Perry, which meant I developed very, very strong leg muscles (until senior year when my roommate was elected house pres. and we got to live in the Perry penthouse), and the College made mucho bucks off meals uneaten. In my day, most of the openly gay students (weren't many, though there were MANY gay students, just not openly gay ones) lived in West College.</p>

<p>There must be a problem that they think they are trying to fix, and I hope they fix it.</p>

8

<p>
[quote]
There must be a problem that they think they are trying to fix, and I hope they fix it.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Amen. Whatever it is, I hope they fix it, too!</p>

9

<p>The cluster (or anchor) housing initiative has been put on hold for another year. Basically, it was a system by which several dorms would be become part of an association making a social group of about 250-300. A student would pick in to a cluster in the spring of his/her freshman year and live there for the next three years. Those in favor of the cluster system felt that it would enhance the social atmosphere, those opposed thought it was unnecessarily complicated. (You can read about in depth on Ephblog.) Everyone agreed that it deserved a lot more tweaking and discussion so it will not be implemented next year. No one seemed to be clear on the agenda, hidden or otherwise, other than the objective of making a good system better.</p>

<p>My son loved the freshman entry system. He had a single room, but great suitemates and wonderful JA’s. The housing lottery was stressful for rising sophomores, but in a fun sort of way, and he’s really enjoyed the sophomore ghetto of Mission. His common room is shared by about 12 kids and it’s a lively social scene, open to all. Same is true of the other groups throughout the building, so there’s a lot of interaction between groups. If you want a party, you can find one. If you want to close your door you can do that too.</p>

<p>Kids are allowed to “pick in” in groups of four. As you go up the class ladder, you get priority in the draw order and thus get better picks and more control over whom you live near. He’s never had any problems meeting and interacting with a wide range of kids, all classes, all backgrounds. Williams is afterall a very small place. You meet kids in classes, in activities, at parties – there is a good deal of cross fertilization.</p>

<p>I would agree that housing – and the variety of dining options – is a positive for Williams.</p>

10

<p>The CUL perceives there to be a problem in the current housing system, although none really exists. The social life at Williams could use some improvement, but forcing people to live in organized clusters is not the solution. Recently, the Record, Williams's paper, has discussed the cluster housing systems at Middlebury and Bowdoin, both of which are considered failures. The CUL seems to think that somehow Williams will be different, despite the fact that the college is approximately the same size, in the same setting (rural), and the proposal is largely the same. In addition, the committee has made it clear that student opinion is not an important factor in setting the proposal. The administration agrees; after seeing all the student objections to the proposal, a dean recently commented that she sees no valid reason not to approve the proposal (not her exact words, but that is an accurate paraphrase). Part of the CUL's goal is to prevent players on varsity teams from living together, since sports have too much control over social life. While I agree that varsity sports may play too large a role in social life, I don't think preventing teammates (read: friends) from living together will solve any problems. (Note: I am not on a varsity team). In addition, the proposal makes it difficult to switch clusters, since random assignment could potentially place a group in a cluster even worse than the one they were trying to get out of.
As for Mission, it is an excellent dorm. Since the renovation, it has become the nicest dorm on campus (I say dorm, not house - the co-ops are the best). Sophomores with the highest picks almost always go for Mission; my group was in the first fifth and our first choice was Dennett, a Mission dorm.</p>

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<p>To begin with, everyone interested in the topic should visit the CUL's website at <a href="http://www.williams.edu/resources/committees/cul/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/resources/committees/cul/&lt;/a>
Ephblog has some discussions on the topic, but I can't vouch for their objectivity. I think it's always best to get your information from the sourece.</p>

<p>The proposed changes would create a housing system which is a blend of the current system, and the past affililation systems of the 60s-90s. Momrath provides a good and accurate description of the proposed housing changes. As a frosh, you will still live in your entry, and your entry will be "socially affiliated" to a particular cluster of housing. Sometime in your frosh year (prob midway through spring semester) you'd pick in with a group of up to 6 students, who would then be randomly assigned to a housing group. If all 6 students or 4-1 or 5-1 were from the same social affiliation, they would have the option of remaining affiliated with their housing group (or being randomly assigned). Then, each year following frosh year you could pick into any house within your housing group with groups of up to 6 students from within your housing group. </p>

<p>It is important to note that these changes aren't meant to "fix" any "problems" at Williams--even the staunchest CUL proponents of the system would agree that the Williams residential system as it stands is pretty decent. However, if we were going to settle for "pretty decent" we wouldn't be at Williams--the CUL feels like these changes will make some pretty significant improvements to campus life. These changes aren't meant to change who people are friends with or undermine the importance of extracurricular groups, but to create an additional option for students. People will still be living with their closest friends, probably in a similar progression from soph-jr-sr houses. </p>

<p>Each grouping of houses is based upon geography (all of the houses are near eachother) and housing equity (all housing groups will have roughly similar quality housing). It's actually surpring how nicely campus houses break down into five clusters. All Campus Entertainment (the social funding structure) would be re-organized around each cluster governing board (parties would still be all-campus). All faculty would be affiliated with clusters, and would attend frequent dinners and social events with members of their housing group, possibly even playing on house intramural teams. </p>

<p>It is important to note that there are significant differences between the proposed Williams house system and the existing systems at Middlebury and Bowdoin. I would actually disagree that the systems at Midd and Bowdoin are considered failures, as I'm sure would many current students at both schools. Neither system is working ideally, but I think the problems with these systems stem much more from the differences between these schools and Williams than the similarities. </p>

<p>The CUL has actually repeatedly stated and shown that student opinion would be extremely influential in shaping the proposal. After presenting rough outlines of the proposal to the student body and receiving feedback, significant changes were made in response to this feedback. Numerous student groups were consulted (the JA advisory board, College Council, HCs, etc), and their suggestions played a large roll in shaping the proposal. Student opinion is certainly mixed on the subject, although it seems to lean against it (by a 60-40 measure according to the Record's poll). This has been an extremely hot topic on campus for the past 6 weeks or so, and it will likely continue to be discussed for at least the next year. </p>

<p>I'd be happy to answer any specific questions anyone had one the subject, or to clarify any of the broader descriptions that I have provided.</p>

12

<p>Haon, you essentially repeated verbatim what the CUL has been saying all along to stifle opposition to this system. People should also look at Ephblog and see the kind of opposition that this proposal is stirring.</p>

<p>I agree that Momrath provided a fair view of the new system, but I got the impression that that post looked favorably on the current system. It acknowledged the CUL's intent to try to improve things (which I have never denied), but it said that students currently are able to meet people without too much difficulty. Furthermore, the cluster housing proposal would deny 60% of students the opportunity to live in Mission. The best part of this house is that most of my class lives here and I can easily go upstairs (or downstairs) to a party and know a lot of the people there. Cluster housing would likely split Mission between juniors and sophomores, destroying the class unity that develops and along with it, the closeness of residents living here.</p>

<p>I don't understand the "additional option" claim. This will be the only option, not some extra benefit. Freshman who like the cluster they are in (eg. Dodd cluster) will be less inclined to make friends from other clusters, since by including more than one other person from outside, they would be forced to change their cluster affiliation, probably for the worse. Furthermore, upperclass students who decide they want a change can only pick in a group of 3 (so groups of friends will be split in half).</p>

<p>Faculty should be encouraged to eat dinner with students in their classes, not a random assortment that they don't even know.</p>

<p>The CUL keeps saying there are differences between this system and those of Midd and Bowdoin - what are they? No one can seem to come up with any real differences. And there are few inherent differences between the schools themselves. The schools are all of comparable size, setting, and academic reputation. And most students at those schools do not like the system. I recently talked with a friend of mine at Middlebury, who loves the school but says the biggest problem there is the Commons (equivalent of cluster) system. When I said that Williams was considering it, his first comment was, "that sucks; do everything you can to oppose it."</p>

<p>I don't know if I would call the changes made after consulting the students "significant"; the proposal remains 95% unchanged (unless there was some entirely different idea that the majority of campus doesn't even know about). The changes were: removing co-ops, removing entries (not really, since entries are still affiliated with clusters), reducing the number of students who could pick in a reaffiliation group to 3, and possibly one or two other minor changes. A new consideration is to eliminate the final all-campus room-draw that was initially going to be provided to current students. It is now possible that pick groups will be randomly assigned to clusters, ensuring that groups of more than 6 who would like to live together most likely will be unable to. This idea would be even worse than if the assigned clusters were based on current houses; since most of my friends live in Dennett, I would at least know I'd be able to live in the same cluster as them my senior year. Finally, one member of the CUL did say that student resistance to the proposal is not a concern and then gave the example that 87% of students were against the elimination of fraternities, but that was better for the campus (actually the campus was pretty evenly split on that issue; the 87% figure came from members of fraternities, who would naturally oppose their banishment).</p>

<p>And since people seem to be very hung up on numbers (recall the recent 12/13% controversy) the Record poll was 62.1% against or leaning against, and only 13% strongly in favor.</p>

13

<p>Woah woah woah, watch how you spin your numbers. Let's be honest: the Record poll showed 13% in favor, 29% opposed, and 58% leaning one way or another. It breaks down to approximately 60-40 opposed counting people's leanings. I think it's pretty clear that there's significant student opposition to the proposal, but there's also significant student support. I suspect that much of the student opposition is due to misunderstandings of the system (such as you display, either intentionally or unintentionally in your post). </p>

<p>Out of curiousity--the student who you cite as saying student resistance was not a concern...who was this student and where did they say this? I'm worried that you're taking this statement out of context, as the CUL has actively solicited student concerns and suggestions from the moment the possible plan was announced. </p>

<p>Now, you say the proposal "remains 95% unchanged." I'd strongly urge you to take another look at the proposal. The clusters were entirely remapped, and they were changed from 6 groupings to 5. Entries were taken virtually entirely out of the original affiliation recommended, and students may now pick in with anyone from anywhere on campus. The number of people who could transfer out of their cluster has never changed (at the time of the original announcement, it was going to be 2 or 3...the CUL settled on 3), although the number of times students could choose to transfer has (originally it was a one-time option...currently it is unlimitted). Co-ops were taken out of the original affiliations. Instead of recommending immediate implimentation, the CUL has recommended a years delay before implimentation. I think these are pretty undisputably major changes (and minor changes were made as well), which most people on campus agree make the proposal significantly stronger. Maybe they aren't the major changes you were hoping for, but downplaying their significance is intellectually dishonest. The assigned clusters were never going to be based on current house, and absolutely no decision has been made about the transition pick in process (in fact, if you read the proposal, you'll notice that the original stated transition possibility was emphasized).</p>

<p>I'm not sure what Momrath feels about the new system...I'd prefer to let her speak for herself. </p>

<p>Mission is a great dorm, but it's not a great dorm because it's all sophomores--it's a great dorm because it's a great dorm. Mission was all sophomores back when it was a crappy dorm, and you know what? People hated it! As one of the Mission reps on College Council, I feel like I'm pretty in touch with current Mission culture. Mission's great because the way that it's setup it really brings people together. The most common thing I hear about mission is that "i got to know [random student] living off the common room who i'd never seen before because of Mission." You know what? You'll still be able to do that! It's just that [random student] will be more likely to be a Jr now rather than a Sophomore, and you know what? I don't see that as a bad thing! I think that inter-class interaction is a good thing! Current Mission residents identify their positive mission experience with the fact that they're living with other Sophomores, but I think that it's much more likely simply because mission's a nice dorm. Sure, cluster housing would limit some sophomores' ability to live in Mission, but they'd be living in greylock instead which is certainly comparibly as nice (judging that it's all jrs currently, it's arguably nicer).</p>

<p>Middlebury is different because their housing stock is so different from ours. Many Midd upperclassmen live in doubles as do almost all frosh. When Midd decided to go to their commons system, they decided that it would only be possible with a full renovation of campus housing. As of this year, I believe they're done with about 60% of campus. In many ways they're still in the process of transitioning to the new system. It's important to note that students living in the renovated commons tend to respond much more positively to the commons system than students in the non-renovated commons. Bowdoin's an entirely separate story--it's more of a virtually-based residential system, and remnants of a frat culture still exists at Bowdoin. Did you read the Record article on Bowdoin? Only one student was quoted throughout the article--I don't consider that balanced reporting. I think the general campus opinion of their system is far more mixed (and if I had to guess, leaning positive) than the impression you're portraying.</p>

<p>I can't believe you don't like the idea of faculty affiliation. You're the first person I've heard from who doesn't. I certainly believe that a greater amount of out-of-class faculty-student interaction would be beneficial to students. </p>

<p>I'm feeling a lot of animosity from you, and I'm sorry that you feel so strongly about this. While I'm not sure if this is the best place to debate the merits of the system, I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.</p>

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<p>I admit that the numbers I cited emphacized the case against anchor housing, but nothing I said was untrue: 13% support, 24.1% are leaning in favor, 32.8% are leaning against, and 29.3% oppose it. That means that 62.1% are against or leaning against, and only 13% actively support it (I left out the 24.1% that are leaning in favor).</p>

<p>I do not feel animosity towards you or anyone else on the CUL. In fact, I admire that you more than anyone else on the CUL are at least willing to take the unpopular position and try to talk about it with students. I don't think the CUL is trying to make life difficult for Williams students; I just believe that they think they know what is best for us, and I (and the majority of students) don't agree. I'm sorry if I misquoted you, but I do recall you saying something to the tune of student resistance not being a factor in the CUL's decision (I probably shouldn't have used the word "concern"). 95% was an exaggeration on my part, but many of the changes have been aesthetic rather than functional (the most useful one was removing co-ops). And the decision to delay the proposal was not because of student objection; Chairman Dudley said that the delay was due to resource and renovation issues.</p>

<p>I know that assigned clusters weren't going to be based on current house. My point was that that would be better than random assignment. The proposal as I read it doesn't emphacize one way or another, although it suggested a compromise that would allow students to list their least-desired cluster and then randomly assign among the other 4. That would still harm current students. At least with incoming freshman, the students are prepared to make friends in their own cluster. Randomly reassigning us would be the equivalent of breaking up a cluster after it has been formed and forcing students to live elsewhere. The random reassignment possibility is by far my strongest objection. If there were no possibility of that occurring, I would still object to the principle of the proposal, but I would not put up quite as much resistance.</p>

<p>Also, I think out-of-class faculty/student interaction is a great idea. It happens now and I would love it if it increased. However, I think that students and faculty will benefit much more by having lunch/dinner/whatever with students enrolled in one of their classes, or at least students they have some professional relationship with. I think faculty affiliation with clusters would alienate students who are not in that cluster. For example, let's say Professor X is in the Tyler cluster and eats dinner with those students all the time. Well, if a student in one of Professor X's classes lives in the Currier cluster, he or she might have a more difficult time meeting with the professor outside of class (and I don't mean office hours). Maybe I'm wrong, but that is how I feel.</p>

15

<p>I'm an outsider; an alum who gives Williams a very small check every year, with no possibility of offspring attending. But could someone explain the problem that needs fixing? Sounds like the administration is convinced there is one, but I don't have the vaguest idea what it is. (To be fair, my alumni rep tried to explain it when he did his annual call to solicit my check, but since we both lived there during the days of small "anchor houses" (we didn't call 'em that), and when every row house had its own dining room, and you were expected to eat at it most of the time, I doubt he understood it either.) (Offhand, clusters with each reflecting the full diversity of the campus, but in smaller units, where folks are more likely to get to know each other over the next three years, regardless of their sport or other non-academic interests, would seem to be a good idea - but I'm probably missing something.)</p>

16

<p>"I'm not sure what Momrath feels about the new system...I'd prefer to let her speak for herself. "</p>

<p>I don't have any opinion at all about cluster housing and do not want to participate in the debate either directly or indirectly! I'm neither an alumuna nor a student and it doesn't affect me in the least. My son's feeling, last I checked, was that the anchor system sounds like fun -- and that he is glad the the freshman entry system would be basically unchanged.</p>

17

<p>Mini:</p>

<p>The reason that nobody will answer your question in is that doing so would acknowledge the existence of problems in the campus community that officially "do not exist".</p>

<p>Having said that, Ephblog pointed to a 2001 college newspaper article with quotes from several faculty members of the Committee on Undergraduate Life (CUL) in its early consideration of anchor housing. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?sawContrib=yes&view=article&section=news&id=3355%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?sawContrib=yes&view=article&section=news&id=3355&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The problem, now unspoken, clearly centers around ad hoc theme housing and self-segration on campus.</p>

18

<p>Good article. Makes sense, too! Thanks.</p>

19

<p>That article makes sense, but I can definitely understand both viewpoints. The concentrated groups of people right now (if that is actually the case) is not good - one would hope that students could develop diverse groups of friends. But I don't think the best answer is to force people into clusters, because that doesn't seem natural either. Any more specifics on what's wrong with Middlebury and Bowdoin's systems? I'm interested in all the schools and want to know more about pros/cons.</p>

20

<p>My personal opinion, which I know flies in the face of Eph wisdom and which is wholly irrelevant and no one needs to listen, is that the core of the problem is the ghettoizing of freshmen. If first-year students were randomly selected into standing residential communities (clusters or what not) from the start, self-segregation wouldn't be much of an issue. Of course students (as individuals) should be allowed to change clusters after their first year, but if the clusters were working well, not many students would want to. It would also build in better interclass mentoring, more day-to-day knowledge of educational and extracurricular options, and perhaps fewer first-year alcohol problems. It would, however, cut down on "class solidarity" (which I think would be a fair tradeoff).</p>

<p>But perhaps it isn't a real option, given the way frosh housing is perceived.</p>