The best of times, the worst of times—freshman year, we’ve all been there. What is it like being a first year student? As a typical incoming freshman, sometime in the middle of August you pack up your life into a few boxes and say goodbye to friends and family. You drive onto your college campus, pull up to the curb of your assigned dorm and are immediately swarmed by orientation staff eager to help you unpack. Within minutes, your car is empty. Next thing you know, you are headed inside your dorm to meet your roommate(s) and fellow classmates. And thus, you have begun your journey as a first-year college student.
The Connecticut College first year experience is similar to any other, with one exception: we do not have all-freshman dorms.
This is the Connecticut College freshman experience we all know, and mostly love. However, change is in the air. Coming Fall 2014 there will be some alterations to freshman housing. These conversations are a collaboration between student life and residential life. The goals? Foster community and make freshmen happier.
In the Jan. 24 meeting of the Student Government Association, Dean Arcelus showed the floor plans of various dorms on campus to reveal how isolated some of the freshmen are. There are about 500 freshmen in a class, and when you scatter them throughout campus, they become spread surprisingly thin.
The idea is that in order to make happier freshmen, we need to make sure they aren’t so isolated on campus. The alternatives being considered are to have an all freshmen dorm, all freshmen floors, and to cluster more freshmen together. In addition, there is the possibility of creating more residentially based first-year seminars within a dorm.
As a result of this potential reorganization in dorms and academic seminars, the residence halls will become both social and intellectual spaces. Victor Arcelus, Dean of Student Life, hopes that through these changes “we can ignite the student experience by liughting up the residence halls in a way we haven’t before”. These proposed residential changes will not be permanent, but rather, will be a one-year pilot study. Incoming freshmen will elect to partake in the all-freshmen housing, just like any other specialty housing option, or they will be clustered in other residence halls with more freshmen than in previous years.
Nothing permanent has been decided yet, but after talking to SGA, house staff, and students of all grades it seemed clear that some change to freshman housing was needed. In the annual housing survey sent out to students at the end of last semester, freshmen were specifically asked about their experiences with upper-classmen and sense of community in their residence halls. Many of the responses showed that freshmen were struggling to connect with others in their grade and dorm.
Evert Fowle ’14, SGA President, also believes that freshmen need to feel less excluded. Fowle believes that this program is worth a try because “not everyone is outgoing. Not everyone is going to go out there and feel like they can go and talk to the senior, the junior, two doors down.”
Fowle continued, “That’s the goal of this program: to find a way for your more median Conn student who’s coming in here a little apprehensive, finding a way that they can feel like they are a part of this community too. I at least feel that doing something involving connecting more housing is going to help do that.”
When I went on a tour as a perspective freshman, I distinctly remember how Connecticut College boasted about its unique dorm life. Conn is not segregated based on gender or grade. Not even our bathrooms are gender biased. There are no fraternities or sororities, you live in a dorm with a mix of students and your dorm becomes a community. Connecticut College thrives on its unique housing, continuing its theme of being an all-inclusive environment.
This is a big negative if we no longer are treating all class years as equals. This model of all freshman dorms and floors is proven to work. However, if we start segregating by grade, this will mean a decrease in Connecticut College’s distinct selling point of being a truly liberal college.
Do we really think that bonding the freshman class is more important than the other relationships that could be made living in a mixed house? There is something to be said about living with upperclassmen. If you have a question about where something is, what class to take or just if you need some advice, there is someone right next door who has been there, done that. Okay, so maybe you’re not best friends with the people on your floor, but from a social aspect there are advantages of at least recognizing some familiar upperclassmen faces around campus. Mixed floors are part of what makes Conn a unique place, and these “different” relationships that are created are a part of what makes Conn so special.
One of the larger issues of this pilot program would be that floors would not be reconstructed. A location has yet to be chosen, but an all freshmen dorm will just be deemed as such without renovation. This potentially would allow for freshmen to have singles. However, I feel that having a roommate is a part of the college experience.
Placing a freshman in a single would allow for already introverted students to keep to themselves. Maybe you do not get along great with your roommate, but it forces you to branch out. The debate then becomes whether a freshman in a single surrounded by other freshmen is better than an isolated freshmen double.
It is rumored that the class of 2016’s retention rate took a severe dip. But does that mean Conn should change what it has been doing for so many years? Fowle believes that change couldn’t make things worse because “what we have right now isn’t working for us. Having freshman kind of isolated in these corners isn’t perfect. Maybe having freshmen in singles isn’t the best way to do it, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try it for a year to see how they like it”. Housing may not be the only reason why students decide to transfer out of Connecticut College, but it is one thing that can be changed to try and strive for a happier freshman.
Now the question most of you are asking yourselves is how does this affect me, and why should I care about freshmen? Well, because this will affect our whole campus. Right now, there is roughly a 25% rule in dorms (i.e. there must be an equal number of students from each year living in a house). It may be small at first, but there will be a noticeable change throughout Conn. There are many unanswered questions revolving around this change to freshman housing, but only time will tell if the pros outweigh the cons, or vice versa. •
