There may be reasons other than a parent wanting to protect their kid from coed exposure, as someone mentioned earlier… And it is certainly a matter of personal choice, like substance-free housing. We have seen 18 schools, and it certainly seems like coed dorms ( by room, or by half the hallway) has become the typical arrangement. There was a mom on one of our college tours recently who asked the tour guide no less than ten questions about the coed dorm/bathroom setup. The student guide was very patient, but after the 3rd or 4 th question, there was a lot of eye rolling from the others in the group. FInally, she blurted out " Let me get this straight – you are saying that when the girls get up in the morning and head to the bathroom, there could be a BOY in the hallway?" Her poor kid was totally mortified.
I was on a co-ed floor…We (girls) had our own suite with our own rooms…so we could close the suite door and have nobody come in or leave it open if we didn’t mind people coming over. We did not have co-ed bathrooms (I think that is quite rare).
My daughter had a co-ed floor…but the girls wing was separate from the boys wing.
I think you need to figure out the minimum you need…I agree with no co-ed bathrooms, but there are co-ed floors of dorms where that does not happen.
I hope OP is not thinking boys and girls share the same dorm room.
Each dorm room is single sex but the halls will have rooms with either boys or girls. (not both)
I too would prefer single sex bathrooms but don’t have an issue with boys and girls living in their own rooms on the same floor.
Some colleges do allow males and females to be roommates in the same room but that is typically an option reserved only for upperclassmen not freshmen.
Do you mean St. Thomas Aquinas College, or Thomas Aquinas College? 
The former seems to have co-ed dorm buildings.
My two cents: my D1 identifies as asexual, so she has none of the more commonly assumed reasons for living coed. She is starting her second year on a coed floor in suites, really enjoys it, and has made many friends of both sexes, including male floor-mates who will back her if she is pressured by a guy. Last year, one of her suite mates moved her mattress into a room across the hall occupied by all men. The rational was perfectly reasonable – she and her roommate had opposite schedules, and her schedule meshed with her friends in the guy’s suite.
In short, I agree with many others here. It’s not a big deal at all.
Coed roommates is too progressive for this parent.
I don’t have a problem w coed bathrooms, as long as there are also single-sex ones available.
I am kind of shocked by so many unfriendly comments that I have seen as a result of the original post. The assumption that she is trying to “control” her daughter or is uptight and out of touch is mean spirited. I am the parent of a freshman girl and I did not want my daughter to be in a dorm with coed bathrooms either. Call me old fashioned, prude or whatever you like, I think my daughter should not have to worry about boys being in the bathroom while she is showering. Her dorm is coed by wing-each wing of her dorm floor has either men or women, and each wing has it’s own bathroom.
I am not sure why so many people here are so judgmental about people of differing beliefs, wants or needs. Why is it that all of us need to believe or feel the same way?
I don’t think there was a lot of genuine hostility here but the OP’s title, “Coed dorms, not on my watch” does seem to imply that coed dorms (in which most of our kids live) are somehow unsavory. The reality is that most kids live on coed floors and many live in dorms with coed bathrooms without incidence. If the OP’s child wants to live in single-sex housing I think we’d all support that, and many of us have given names of schools where that’s the norm, but if this is all the parent’s idea as a way of protecting their child then I think they may be a little naive.
Coed bathrooms are no more titillating than sharing a bathroom with your brother at home. They have individual stalls and showers with privacy curtains. You might be brushing your teeth next to someone of the opposite gender but that’s about it.
Coed dorms? Yawn, they’ve been around for years.
Coed bathrooms? Every time this thread comes up, it is apparent that some people experienced suite-style bathrooms (not all that different from brothers and sisters sharing a hall bath at home - rarely are 2 people in there at the same time) and others experienced “big group” bathrooms (akin to a public restroom with many stalls, sinks and showers and multiple people in there at the same time). And the suite-style people extrapolate their experience to everyone else and think that they are discussing the same thing.
IMO, these are two entirely different “worlds” when it comes to coed bathrooms, with a lot more privacy concerns in the second.
Generally speaking, “big group” public bathrooms that are coed don’t really exist in US society. Anyone ever seen one in a work setting, a health club, a stadium, etc? Any new sports stadiums or concert halls being built this way? Don’t think so.
Having said that, it’s also notable to me that I’ve taken spin classes at both SoulCycle and CycleBar, and both had one big coed locker room and it was NBD. Granted, most people are coming in gym gear and just taking off a sweatshirt or something similar, not fully changing. But still.
I had “big group” coed bathrooms 35 years ago in my dorm. Both my kids have them at college. Hasn’t been a problem. Wear a robe or towel. There are partitions.
I do think college kids self sort though. If its an issue for someone, like the OP, they are likely to choose a school where you can opt out of that arrangement. Also, most dorm floors will vote anonymously at the start of the year on bathroom arrangements.
“Generally speaking, “big group” public bathrooms that are coed don’t really exist in US society. Anyone ever seen one in a work setting, a health club, a stadium, etc? Any new sports stadiums or concert halls being built this way? Don’t think so.”
My sophomore year at Wesleyan (early '80’s) I lived in a house, an actual wood frame house (as opposed to a dorm called a house) that was part of university housing. There were 8 of us, 4 men, 4 women. The school had renovated the bathroom so that multiple people could use it at one time. Three sinks, 2 shower stalls set up so that you could step out and still be in a curtained private space, 2 toilet stalls and a couple of urinals in a curtained off alcove. It worked just fine. Obviously one example from decades ago doesn’t say anything about the prevalence of this sort of arrangement, but it’s not unheard of.
I agree that the OP got a negative reaction largely because of her word choice, the “not on my watch.” I think if she had posted that her daughter is uncomfortable with the idea of coed bathrooms she would have gotten a very different reception.
And I would join others in asking what the concerns are? Ok, I can see not loving the idea of sharing a bathroom with a bunch of men the student doesn’t know, because it only takes one disrespectful, harassing jerk to make the experience a problem. But coed floors? OP, what do you think will happen on a coed floor that can’t happen on a single sex floor with visitors of the opposite sex? I suspect the list of schools that won’t allow men to even visit a women’s floor and vice versa is very, very small and heavily skewed towards religiously conservative.
“There were 8 of us, 4 men, 4 women. The school had renovated the bathroom so that multiple people could use it at one time. Three sinks, 2 shower stalls set up so that you could step out and still be in a curtained private space, 2 toilet stalls”
This is precisely what I mean by a suite-style bathroom, not tremendously different from sharing a bathroom with multiple siblings! I agree this is NBD.
This isn’t the definition of a “big group bathroom” IMO. I’m talking the kind that service 20, maybe even 30 students. I had this, my H had this, my D had this. I cannot believe we were alone.
Hendrix has a male dorm, a female dorm, and a coed (by floor) dorm for freshmen. Students pick what they 'd rather have.
Upperclassmen move into suite - style housing with same gender suite mates.
I’m okay with a co-ed floor (I lived in one for two years). Co-ed bathrooms would bother me, a lot. I’m not gonna lie about that one.
Your LAC literally had thirty sinks and shower stalls lined up in each bathroom? I doubt iit.
^ no, there are typically six to eight sinks along a wall, and partitioned areas with a door with four or five showers, each comprising a little area where you’d disrobe and hang our clothes, and the shower proper. If you were lucky one may even have had one door behind which was a bath. Then a series of toilets in their private stalls. That would service about 30 freshmen. So, you brushed our teeth next to someone from any gender but showered on your own, just like in a family bathroom.
OP never said it was a daughter, just a child. Her son may also not want to share.
I wanted my daughter to live on a woman’s hallway or wing, and she wanted to also. She didn’t want to be I a Freshman Interest Group, so it was no problem as those FIG wings are coed but they have two bathrooms on each wing which had two stalls, two sinks, two showers, so not big. She needed her ID to swipe to get inso they couldn’t use the other bathroom.
I think freshmen dorms are single sex at St Olaf, but upperclassmen live in coed dorms with gender neutral wings.
Check out Illinois Wesleyan, UScranton, St Bonaventure?
In my experience, co-ed bathrooms were no cause for concern. Why? Because on co-ed floors, the guys and girls became very protective of one another – little cross-dating even occurred, we were more buddies than potential girlfriend or boyfriends. The idea that someone would act obnoxiously in the bathroom towards the opposite gender would simply be unthinkable. Plus, those that wanted more privacy (both men and women) would strategically time their usage.
My women friends said they liked the co-ed floors better b/c the women seemed to have less drama amongst themselves since everyone was in it together – no competing for attention and any cattiness would be in front of the guys and a source of embarrassment.
As for coed rooms being “too progressive” – it’s not as if this is being imposed on anyone. It’s an option for some schools. I lived in a de facto coed suite all my four years due to GFs of one or two roommates all the time…