Well I’m an ethnic minority and I think ethnic themed res halls seem pretty damn stupid exept for one overwhelming factor-no one will have cause to complain about the food smells because the ethnic theme provides adequate notice. “Beware to All Who Enter: Curry Smells” etc… Plus, I suppose if you have extreme religious/dietary restrictions, it can work out well.
I don’t know…when I was at McGill the exceedingly religious Muslims were forced to live right up against the Persian coke fiends, next to the kids from rural Ontario, next to the snotty Indian brats who were 99% pre-med, next to the Asian Girls and we actually got on okay. Or at least, our mutual disgust was kept to a dull simmer and we at least discovered the very valuable life skill of how to be polite to people whose behaviour and lifestyle we didn’t agree with in the least.
However, when my sister came to the same university I counselled her to stay in sex segregated housing (RVC) because the facilities were significantly nicer, and safer (we had a peeping tom incident in the dorm showers that the University did not take seriously at all, though the guy broke in MULTIPLE times to look in on girls in the shower…this is why the story linked above does not surprise me in the least).
As a freshman in college, I asked specifically to live in the black students dorm, I mean, residence hall. I didn’t know why exactly, but later I was glad I had the expericence of living with blacks who were from socioeconomic, geographic and economic backgrounds different from the one I had experienced. (I grew up poor in Mississippi with a sub-standard secondary education.)
They also conducted dorm business meetings (re: rules, once-a-week residence dinners, other sponsored events, etc.) in a way that was, if I may use the term, empowered. This was something I wasn’t quite to seeing blacks do as a group. (I had been a part of student government in high school though).
All of that meant a lot me in terms of support (in such a demanding educational setting) and self image (personally).
My sophomore year I applied for and was accepted to live in the Latino residence hall, again broadening my horizons, in terms of language skills, culture and friendships I’d never experienced in my blacks-and-whites only upbringing.
During both these years, by default, I was always a participant in the larger, majority experience of the university, classes, events and student life. I never felt segregated at all.
I think it’s unfair to call it “segregation.” No Asian student is forced to live on the Asian Floor or whatever it’s called, and a non-Asian could probably live there if they were extremely interested in Asian culture or something like that. I could be wrong on this second point, but I still think “segregation” implies something very different from themed floors. By the way, my school (USC) also has non-racially themed floors like the “health and wellness” floor, the cinema floor (for cinema majors, but also non-majors who are just “into” film-making), the rainbow floor (for LGBT students, as well as their “straight allies”), the “outdoors” floor (for people who like hiking and camping and such), and I’m sure several others. You can check housing.usc.edu if you’re really curious.
So what IS the difference between a dorm and a residence hall? At USC all the official paperwork calls the buildings “residence halls” but everyone just calls them “dorms” and no one ever complains.
Somehow I doubt that Asian students are a minority at Stanford.
The comments below the article say that she was admitted to Stanford but didn’t enroll, and that she’d also been accepted to UC schools but her parents pressured her to go to Stanford, for some reason. So many things about this story do not make sense.
What would happen if you started up a 1950’s style whitey themed dorm? You know, like School Ties or something like it. It’s nothing but white males, and everyone has to wear a tie or polo shirts.
At the crux of the thing, there’s no difference. Colleges pick and choose what they want to call them. To make a sweeping generalization, the notion at most places is that “residence hall” conveys a more intentional living arrangement where programming and leadership opportunities contribute directly to the overall college education experience. Sometimes I think “hall” is used simply to sound tonier than “dorm.” You also sometimes get “house,” which is supposed to make you think Harvard. Sometimes a specific college will have a distinction that only applies to that one institution – a while back, where I work “dorms” meant freshmen dorms, and everything else was a “hall” (on paper at least, verbally most people continued to use dorm and hall as synonyms) but we eventually dropped that in favor of hall (and people still use dorm and hall as synonyms). I know of another school where dorm means the kind with communal bathrooms, and buildings with private bathrooms attached to rooms or suites are called halls.
I guess I’m surprised this situation at Stanford went on for that long, but I’m not too surprised overall. It seems like this woman was fairly smart about how she went about inserting herself socially - the articles talk about how she was shy, but from the comments I get the impression that she was fairly well-liked. Probably the fastest way a situation like this would come to the attention of the hall staff is if other students complained about her - taking other people’s food from the common kitchen, or blasting music all night during exams, or other socially unacceptable behavior. The most surprising part (to me) is that it seems things got to the point of the Housing Office attempting to contact the actual resident of the room via email (so someone raised some concerns at some point) - and did not pursue any face-to-face communication to try to suss out what was going on.
I don’t remember any ethnic dorms at Berkeley–they certainly don’t have any dating back to the 60’s. If there are some now, they must be pretty new. Anyone got information on this point?
Their housing web site lists theme options. The way they describe it makes me think that they aren’t entire dorm buildings, but rather floors or sections within larger halls. Founding dates are included in some: African-American: 1984, Asian/Pacific/American: 1992, Chicano/Latino: 1992. Participation requires enrollment in a specific academic program and community service. I think it’s a hoot that they come right out on the web site and say it’s a good way to bypass the housing lottery process.
Drat, I missed the edit window. Anyway, I also wanted to mention that when I saw 1984, I thought “okay, not so long ago” and then I thought about it more and darn, I’m old. It’s older than its current residents!
I’ve also interviewed students who lived in the African-American house, and I know of people who lived in the APA house. Nice kids, and not at all “segregationist.”
I should also point out that on the campuses where I’ve conducted research, if the house is its own free-standing structure, it’s usually quite small. (Emory’s BSU/A house is literally a bungalow.) Even though the nomenclature is “theme house,” they are typically parts of a preexisting residence hall (like MIT’s Chocolate City).
Residence life pros use the term “residence hall” because students live in the buildings. The most common connotation of “dorm” is where military people sleep. (Dormio=sleep in Latin.) To convey the totality of the experience (and make it sound a lot nicer!) people in the profession prefer “residence hall” over “dorm.” Likewise, “resident advisor” over “dorm advisor” and “hall director” over “dorm mother.” (I actually knew a guy who would introduce himself as such!)
I was a hall director and coordinator of a theme house (not ethnic, it was for engineers and scientists) in the late 90s. I made my RAs do regular walkthroughs, so you know, they would actually know who lived on their wing. But even then I had staff who wanted to IM or e-mail information to residents, rather than visit them face-to-face. This situation is a perfect example of why it’s important to have staff who understand the job is about personal interaction. An observant RA would probably have noticed a student who is not on the roster hanging out on the floor, or more likely, would know from residents about the situation. I personally had at the most 60 residents as an RA, and as a supervisor, my RAs probably had about the same number max. It’s not possible to know every single kid well, but if you know half fairly well you can keep tabs on what’s happening on the floor… who has an eating disorder, who’s flunking out, who’s doing meth, who sleeps at their boyfriend’s room most nights, etc.
Sounds like the RA was either overwhelmed with the number of students s/he had to supervise, or s/he was negligent. Residence life departments are sticklers about knowing who lives where - most departments are auxiliary enterprises, which means all of the funding comes from student rent. If someone’s freeloading they want to know about it, stat.
I, too, am surprised she got away with it as long as she did.
But I have a similar story. My roommate my freshman year was a 5th year senior. Nice guy, very polite, always worked at least one job to put himself through school. His freshman year (1972?) he was assigned to live in a single-sex dorm. A women’s dorm! :eek: I don’t know how that happened,his first name is one of the Apostles’ names fer crying out loud!
But roomie didn’t realize what had happened!
Rooms in his his dorm were arranged in four rooms “suites” sharing a short hall, which ran between the shared bathroom and the outside walkway. Rooomie was assigned to the first floor, and his roommate never showed up. The rest of his suitemates were freshmen, and female, so they always locked the door when using the bathroom. Roomie had a full class schedule and two jobs, so he was hardly ever around.
One night about a month into the school year he got back to the dorm especially late - after the dorm’s doors closed. So roomie followed the normal procedure at the time and called the campus police to let him in. “I’d like to get in to Parker Dorm,” he said in his deep booming voice. “I bet you would, buddy!” <click> Roomie calls right back “I’dliketobeletintoParkerDorm - I LIVE THERE!” Sure enough, when the campus police came, they saw that Roomie had a Parker key, and a Parker sticker on his student ID card. (Don’t ask me how that happened - in my day the dorm stickers were handed out at the dorm in person. Maybe this was why.) The police wore up the dorm director, who got the whole story and let Roomie into his room for the night.
The next morning the dorm director had an emergency meeting with Roomie and his suitemates. The dorm director said to Roomie “You are going to Teague,” (an all male dorm nearby) and then to the suitemates “You are going to the fourth floor. If you had a man living in your suite for a month and didn’t know it, you are not safe on the first floor!”
What is they say about these things happening in threes?
Apparently, another woman at Stanford claimed to be conducting research in the physics department, and perhaps even lived there for a time, over four years… except she wasn’t a Stanford student or affiliate. (She was a temp worker at one point.) Check it out.
Y’know… when I was in my senior year in college, I decided I wanted a dorm room all to myself. I figured I could pull it off, especially since the men’s dorm was never at full capacity and people accidently had rooms to themselves all the time. The week before classes started, I registered early and moved into my room on the roof (we called it, “The Penthouse”), then I scammed the dorm director into letting me volunteer in the office while he took a long lunch. The minute he was gone I a) took out the new student room assignment directory clipboard b) moved the name of the guy assigned to my room into another room c) penciled in the name of a fake foreign exchange student who was supposed to be moving in with me d) faked a memo from the housing director’s office, unsigned, that this student would be arriving late and to hold the room e) slipped said memo in the dorm director’s mail cubby f) stole the unused dorm room key to my room so on the off-chance someone tried to assign him my room
I went back to the room, spread my shit out all over, put my stuff in both closets and both dressers, shoved both of the single beds together into a supersized bed, shoved the bed right in the middle of the floor.
Man, it was glorious.
I pulled my scam off for … six days. To this day I don’t know where that extra damn key came from, and Now I think I probably should have picked a better name than “Jorge Luis de Panamo” because my roommate ended up being Daniel George from Panama. His friend Luis got a room down the hall.
