pretty self-explanatory, i just saw this on CNN and was kind of shocked
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/05/02/coed.dorm.rooms.ap/index.html
(AP) -- Erik Youngdahl and Michelle Garcia share a dorm room at Connecticut's Wesleyan University. But they say there's no funny business going on. Really. They mean it.
Erik Youngdahl and Michelle Garcia surf the internet in their room at Wesleyan University.
They have set up their beds side-by-side like Lucy and Ricky in "I Love Lucy" and avert their eyes when one of them is changing clothes.
"People are shocked to hear that it's happening and even that it's possible," said Youngdahl, a 20-year-old sophomore. But "once you actually live in it, it doesn't actually turn into a big deal."
In the prim 1950s, college dorms were off-limits to members of the opposite sex. Then came the 1970s, when male and female students started crossing paths in coed dormitories. Now, to the astonishment of some baby boomer parents, a growing number of colleges are going even further: coed rooms.
At least two dozen schools, including Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, Clark University and the California Institute of Technology, allow some or all students to share a room with anyone they choose, including someone of the opposite sex. This spring, as students sign up for next year's room, more schools are following suit, including Stanford University.
As shocking as it sounds to some parents, some students and schools say it's not about sex.
Instead, they say the demand is mostly from heterosexual students who want to live with close friends who happen to be of the opposite sex. Some gay students who feel more comfortable rooming with someone of the opposite sex are also taking advantage of the option.
"It ultimately comes down to finding someone that you feel is compatible with you," said Jeffrey Chang, a junior at Clark in Worcester, Massachusetts, who co-founded the National Student Genderblind Campaign, a group that is pushing for gender-neutral housing. "Students aren't doing this to make a point. They're not doing this to upset their parents. It's really for practical reasons."
Couples do sometimes room together, an arrangement known at some schools as "roomcest." Brown explicitly discourages couples from living together on campus, be they gay or straight. But the University of California, Riverside has never had a problem with a roommate couple breaking up midyear, said James C. Smith, assistant director for residence life.
Most schools introduced the couples option in the past three or four years. So far, relatively few students are taking part. At the University of Pennsylvania, which began offering coed rooms in 2005, about 120 out of 10,400 students took advantage of the option this year.
At UC Riverside, which has approximately 6,000 students in campus housing, about 50 have roommates of the opposite sex. The school has had the option since 2005.
Garcia and Youngdahl live in a house for students with an interest in Russian studies. They said they were already friendly and didn't think they would be compatible with some of the other people in the house.
"I had just roomed with a boy. I was under the impression at the time that girls were a little bit neater and more quiet," Youngdahl said. "As it turns out, I don't see much of a difference from one sex to the other."
Garcia, 19, admitted: "I'm incredibly messy."
Parents aren't necessarily thrilled with boy-girl housing.
Debbie Feldman's 20-year-old daughter, Samantha, is a sophomore at Oberlin in Ohio and plans to room with her platonic friend Grey Caspro, a straight guy, next year. Feldman said she was shocked when her daughter told her.
"When you have a male and female sharing such close quarters, I think it's somewhat delusional to think there won't be sexual tension," 52-year-old Feldman said. "Maybe this generation feels more comfortable walking around in their underwear. I'm not sure that's a good thing."
Still, Feldman said her daughter is partly in college to learn life lessons, and it's her decision. Samantha said she assured her mom that she thinks of Caspro as a brother.
"I'm really close to him, and I consider him one of my really good friends," she said. "I really trust him. That trust makes it work."
i guess this is great if the people rooming with each other are compatable and also incredibly mature, but there are just so many things i can see going wrong with this that i'm really surprised that colleges would take the risk in doing this. if there was ever some kind of sexual incident, i'd bet dollars to doughnuts that the parents would try and find a way to make the college liable in some fashion. i just envision thousands and thousands of horny teenagers signing up for this thinking it'll get them laid.
i dunno, even outside of a dorm situation, co ed roomies are often frowned upon. i don't see it going much better with a bunch of college freshman (although maybe the solution here is to restrict it to upperclassmen who've lived in the dorms before).
"okay byron, my grandma has a right to be happy, so i give you my blessing. just... don't get her pregnant. i don't need another mom."
Posts
I don't know where this came from. I certainly didn't notice anything discouraging couples living together in the emails they sent.
yeah, that i'm totally cool with, and they mention that in the article. i'm not sure how often that's the case, though
Not really. It's very common.
How common is it that opposite people of the same sex that aren't in a relationship share the same room though? I know it's common to share say, an apartment with a friend of the opposite sex but it seems like actually rooming with them might be a bit rarer.
depends on how old you are, i think. i guess i was more talking about the 20-25 year old range, where it's definitely not as common as it is once you get older and out of the "college mindset"
which is why i think this whole idea of a co ed dorm room is pretty iffy
edit: and kal is right, sharing a dorm room is a hell of a lot different than sharing an apartment.
I'm referring to the 22-30 year range. And uh I don't know what you mean by the last comment...you said "even outside a dorm situation..." which I took to mean post-college and in an apartment...what else falls outside of dorm situation where people room together? Anyway, that's what I was talking about.
Co-ed rooming is very common. And once you're that age, I think "frowned upon" is kind of silly. By who? Trust me, nobody gives a shit at that point. And it's very common, at least here in New York.
Then again, I also know there can be sexual tension. It isn't something that can be generalized though. Some people can get over it, and some won't. Some won't even experience it.
What'd help is a system of meeting your roomie before actually living with them, like some sort of interview or screening process even. Randomly pairing up people is the danger. I've never lived in a college dorm, nor looked into the process of how that's all done even in non-co-ed places, so... is random pairing the prevalent method?
Well, I imagine parents will easily have concern. I'm no parent yet, but thinking about it now, if my daughter was telling me she was going to have a boy as a roomie in her dorm I'd be an adamant prick about it. Or maybe I won't if in her growing up she's displayed herself as being strong willed.
It's a tricky situation. :P
(and I was born and raised in California; I'm not that liberal though)
Your talking about people that live in a apartment and each have their own room right Drez?
I'm talking about 22-30. No offense, but what your parents think about your life choices at that point is very much academic and based on generation-old textbooks.
i disagree, but whatever.
again, i just don't see how this could work on a large scale with a bunch of horny 18 year olds. and i am more surprised that a college would take the risk that's inherently involved here. if you live in an apartment and decide to live with a person of the opposite sex, that's your choice. but because roommates are assigned by the college, if one of the roommates turns out to be a creep, there's the potential for some huge problems that the college could potentially be liable for.
co ed ROOMS. read the article, buddy
Usually, yes.
Again, I was responding to pants man's comment that "outside of a dorm situation" it is still frowned upon.
This is co-ed rooms, not coed dorms or hallways.
seriously, did you read the article? or have ever been to college? or have ever been around teenagers/been a teenager yourself?
What do you disagree with? I don't know anyone that frowns upon it. I can't say that nobody frowns upon it - and in fact I'm sure people do - but do you have some kind of survey proving that a majority of people out there frown upon gender-mixed groups of people sharing living quarters? All I have to go on is the fact that this is extremely commonplace in New York and that nobody I know, especially in my generation but also in my parent's generation, thinks much of it. Hell, my GRANDMOTHERS don't really think anything of it. They thought it was interesting, actually, when I was planning on moving in with a female friend.
Because apparently people like me, college freshmen, can't control ourselves and if we roomed with a girl we'd go crazy with wanting sex.
So I don't see what the big deal is.
Have you? I know this isn't directed at me, but you seem to be assuming a great many things that shouldn't be assumed.
First, how can you disagree with something Drez knows? Or did you just mean the frowned upon part?
Are there immature 18 year olds? Yes. Are there immature 40 year olds? Yes. It's not 1950 anymore, and there is enough shielding of young people from the big bad scary world (girls! boys! omigod they're together) as it is. Guy-guy / girl-girl matchups can be just as creepy as guy-girl matchups. The only reason you don't see how it could work is perhaps you aren't mature enough to accept this? I don't mean this as an insult, but it seems this could be an explanation for your extreme resistance to this.
Yeah, I can speak from the experience of being in a dormroom right now that we're responsible, sometimes we have fun and shit, but we can control ourselves.
Honestly, I wouldn't want to date my roommate if I was in this situation. Too awkward, methinks.
okay, a few things:
i know the opposite of what drez is saying just as much as he knows it. it's a statement of opinion, not fact. i'm sure i KNOW just as many people as he does that think differently about the subject than he does. not to mention that it's only marginally related to the topic at hand because they're two different situations.
secondly: arguing that 50 year olds are on the whole any way comparable to the maturity level of 18 year olds? really? REALLY?
lastly, read the OP. i said that if the students are mature enough to handle this, this would be fine and great, like the situation in the article. my problem is that colleges are going to have some kind of liability in this if something goes wrong AND the fact that college freshman are generally looking to get laid and drunk. are all of them? no. but let's stop with the retarded "NUH UH I AM TOTALLY MATURE SEE YOU ARE WRONG" crap.
Dude, I'm in college RIGHT NOW and we're responsible enough to not fuck our room mate. Yes, we drink, yes we try to get laid but I really don't see how this makes coed dorm rooms horrible. NEWS FLASH: Teenage males can indeed go long periods of time without trying to screw anything that moves.
either that, or you guys are placing most of your argument in the hands of 18 and 19 year olds, most of whom are living on their own for the first time.
which is hilarious.
Well, since 18 and 19 year olds are the ones you are saying aren't mature enough, I don't see why my opinion and observations of college as a 19 year old are invalid.
hooray for you and your roommate
look, i'm not saying all freshmen are stupid and horny and looking to get drunk. but a lot of them are, and if you don't think there'd be more problems with a 1000 coed dorm rooms compared with a 1000 single sex dorm rooms, you're out of your mind.
I really don't think there'd be a huge problem, or even many more problems with coed vs. single sex.