Please Explain Coed Dorms to Me

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>I have noticed that a few schools list their dorms as being coed. From what I can understand, this means that males and females can live on the same floor / hall of the dorm, but not with one another?</p>

<p>Both University of Florida and University of Miami simply state that their dorms are "coed," but the housing application for New College of Florida allows me to select a "mixed sex" apartment.</p>

<p>What if I'm going to school with a female friend and wanted to room with her, but I'm a male? What if I went with my sister? Could my sister be my roommate? Does coed dorm mean that I can elect to have a female matched to my personality instead of a male matched to my personality?</p>

<p>It just seems silly that males / females couldn't room together if they elected to because everyone is an adult in college. I mean, if I went to college with a sister that's the same age as me, it would be cheaper to get an apartment off-campus if we wanted to live together, but what if I want to live on campus?</p>

<p>Somebody please explain what the vague term "coed dorms" means at most universities.</p>

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<p>Evey school is different. I’m unaware of any school where “coed dorm” means “opposite-sex roommates” for freshmen. “Coed by room” is probably the most integrated you’ll find, with each room single-sex, but both men and women living on the same hall.</p>

<p>Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk</p>

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<p>My son is on a coed floor at his school. The girls/guys can’t be in the same “Suite” but they can be on the same floor. For example, he has 3 roommates and next door to him is a “suite” with 4 girls. The college, as far as I know, doesn’t allow girls/guys to share the same room…but I could be wrong.</p>

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<p>There are now “gender neutral” dorms at dozens of colleges. That means you can room with someone of the opposite sex. Each school has a different policy but there are actually a few where you have to “opt out” of having a gender neutral roommate assigned.</p>

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<p>Schools that do gender neutral for freshman are probably very, very, very, rare because freshman typically don’t choose their roommates. What has become much more common recently (but is still pretty rare) is that sophomores and above may choose to share a double room with someone of the opposite sex.</p>

<p>The language isn’t fully standardized, so I would just ask the school what exactly they mean by “coed.”</p>

<p>At most schools, a coed dorm is probably one where the rooms themselves are single sex but men and women live on the same floor.</p>

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<p>I found two websites that list some schools with gender-neutral housing. They are pretty rare, but there is a significant amount of schools on the list:</p>

<p>[Inclusive</a> Housing Options on US College and University Campuses: Home](<a href=“http://inclusivehousing.blogspot.com%5DInclusive”>http://inclusivehousing.blogspot.com)</p>

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<p>By “coed” dorms, UF and UM mean that you are able to live next door to the opposite sex. The policy is that opposite sexes are to not room with each other. It doesn’t matter if you guys are related. (You can fight for it if you want…) </p>

<p>Everyone may be an adult in college but there a negative outcomes of allowing random men and women room together in a college environment.</p>

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<p>

The living arrangement for sophomores, juniors and seniors at DS’s college is like that. The girls’ suite and the boys’ suite could share the common bathroom in-between.</p>

<p>It is different for freshmen. Girls’ suites are on the different floor than boys’ suites.</p>

<p>In one year, one family sued the school for the policy of requiring their offsprings to live in such an environment.</p>

<p>Later years (after DS had graduated), I has the impression that gays or lesbians could opt for “special” living arrangement, if I remember it correctly.</p>

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<p>Seriously?! Please tell me it was dismissed.
No one is “REQUIRED” to live in any such environment. No one is forced to go to college let alone a specific college.
What a stupid reason to sue. We are so freaking sue-happy in this country.</p>

<p>Like everyone else said, it depends on the school. Every school is different.</p>

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<p>I know with my school we had co-ed dorms meaning that boys and girls could live on the same floor, and then after freshman year you could room with boys or girls usually at least in the same suite. Though very few people took that opportunity!</p>

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<p>romani,</p>

<p>This is what I referred to:</p>

<p>[Students</a> Challenge Co-Ed Housing | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1997/9/12/students-challenge-co-ed-housing-pfive-yale/]Students”>Students Challenge Co-Ed Housing | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>

<p>It looks like these families went all the way to the Suppreme Court before the issue was settled:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.studlife.com/archives/News/2001/10/09/SupremeCourtdeclinesJewishstudentslawsuitagainstYale/[/url]”>http://www.studlife.com/archives/News/2001/10/09/SupremeCourtdeclinesJewishstudentslawsuitagainstYale/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>"Five Yale students are preparing to file a lawsuit charging that Yale’s co-ed rooming policy prevents them from following the tenets of their beliefs as Orthodox Jews-that unmarried men and women should live separately.</p>

<p>Nathan Lewin, counsel for the five students, said the group will likely file suit against the university. Lewin would not comment on what basis the suit would be filed, but did confirm that the students’ first amendment right to religious freedom would be a component.</p>

<p>“We have advised Yale that we would be filing suit unless there’s a satisfactory policy,” Lewin said.</p>

<p>The five students-first-years Rachel Wolgelernter, Batsheva Greer and Elisha Dov Hack and sophomores Lisa Friedman and Jeremy Hershman-are fighting a residential requirement for first-years that has been in place for years.</p>

<p>In an the op-ed piece, “College Life vs. My Moral Code” that appeared in The New York Times Monday, Hack expressed disillusionment with a rooming system that allowed her brother, also an Orthodox Jew, to live at home in New Haven during all four years at the college.</p>

<p>The policy has since changed and mandates that she must live on campus not only as a first-year, but also as a sophomore.</p>

<p>Although the floors in some dorms at the college are single-sex, Hack said co-ed bathrooms and hallways send a “moral message” that runs counter to the religious tenets of Orthodox Judaism.</p>

<p>Common spaces within the dorms are co-ed and several bathrooms in each dorm are designated as co-ed facilities.</p>

<p>“We cannot, in good conscience, live in a place where women are permitted in men’s rooms, and where visiting men can traipse through the common halls on the women’s floors-in various stages of undress-in the middle of the night,” Hack wrote in the op-ed.</p>

<p>According to Lewin, all five students were aware of campus policy before they began classes at the college.</p>

<p>Yesterday, Dean of Yale College Richard H. Brodhead replied to Hack’s piece with a Times op-ed of his own: “Dormitory Life is Essential to a Yale Education.”</p>

<p>It was well before DS’s time. But somehow I remember reading it somewhere.</p>

<p>In the communal dorm for the GRADUATE school students at DS’s school, I heard that, even today, there is a women’s floor, and there is also a men’s floor. But most floors are coed floors.</p>

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<p>Oh good grief. Choose another college if your religion forbids you from <em>gasp</em> sharing living quarters with someone with opposite genitalia. </p>

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</p>

<p>Good. </p>

<p>Yet another reason I’m so glad I’m not religious and don’t come from a religious family. People are ridiculous. You don’t choose a university and then expect it to conform to your religious/moral beliefs. You choose a university that conforms to your religious/moral beliefs.</p>

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<p>My school’s “co-ed” dorms usually means that girls live on one wing, guys live on an another wing, and they are only connected through the basement and first floor. </p>

<p>So there are many different definitions of co-ed.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all of the replies, guys. I think I understand the concept of coed now. Basically if I want to go to a school where I can room with the opposite sex, I’ll have to look for gender-neutral housing, which is pretty hard to come by.</p>

<p>And I agree with romanigypsyeyes on those students suing Yale. It would be one thing if Yale was a Jewish college that neglected to follow the Jewish beliefs, but it’s not so they have no reason to sue over that. If people want to go to a college that even considers their religion, they should attend a school that’s affiliated with a church.</p>

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Well, that probably wouldn’t help the orthodox jews :)</p>

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<p>I don’t know if there are any Jewish universities, but surely you understood what I meant… Like Brigham Young University is affiliated with the Mormon church. If BYU violated a religious principle, then the students have a right to get upset with the school. They went to BYU because it values the Mormon traditions, etc, so if BYU isn’t giving them that then they have a right to be upset. But you can’t attend Yale and expect them to implement Jewish rules just because you’re Jewish.</p>