The College Fix

A housing committee established to explore new gender-integrated living options distributed an e-mail survey to a sample of Vanderbilt University students last week to assess interest in gender mixed on-campus accommodations.

According to Randy Tarkington, senior director of Residential Education, about 1,500 students received the survey, which officially closed on Wednesday night. As of 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, over 500 students had responded, Tarkington said.

Tarkington is chairing a committee formed by Associate Dean of Students Steve Caldwell, on behalf of Dean of Students Mark Bandas, in order to assess Vanderbilt’s current gender-integrated housing options and to explore where the university will go next.

“I think the focus at this point in time is that this is a committee in exploration that will make recommendations, and at the end of the day, this is about giving students more choices and options,” Tarkington said.

Tarkington said the committee was formed to respond to student interest for more gender-mixed housing options.

“We have had several requests from students to be able to live in apartments together, so it was time to take a look and explore that,” he added.

Vanderbilt currently offers three housing options that allow students to live in different types of gender-integrated environments. McGill Hall offers one residence hall where men and women live on the same floor and share a unisex bathroom, while the Mayfields can be used as gender-mixed houses for various ratios of male and female students. According to Tarkington, the 10 students within each lodge determine how they will divide the use of the two bathrooms. McTyeire Hall has also traditionally been co-ed by floor because students live by language interest, but they have gender-designated bathrooms, Tarkington said.

Tarkington said the survey looked at various types of gender-integrated living options in order to ask two fundamental questions: Do students think new types of gender-integrated options should be available in the housing-selection process? And, if new options were available, how interested would students be in living in the new accommodations?

Tarkington added that the survey explored a variety of different gender-integrated living scenarios, from apartments and suites being integrated to a traditional floor where men and women can live in the same room with access to a unisex bathroom, with several options in between.

“We looked at suites and apartments where the rooms stayed single gender and where the rooms would be mixed gender, and traditional floors where men and women live on the same floor but not the same room, with either bathrooms designated for each sex or the same option where bathrooms were unisex,” Tarkington said.

According to Tarkington, the committee will utilize the survey results to come forward with a recommendation should the committee decide to make changes to the housing options.

Tarkington said that the committee’s initial goal was to expand gender-integrated housing options for the 2011-2012 academic year based on student interest, but that the implementation may also be a phased-in approach

“The goal would be to next year phase some things in, but I think it will be an ongoing process, and we will continue to assess how successful the changes we make are,” he said.

Junior Ian Simoy said that he would like to at least have more gender-integrated housing options, especially suite-style living with the same co-ed housing that the Mayfields offer.

“I think it’s good that Vanderbilt is doing this. I don’t see it as too much of a problem, although I do understand that some people might have some concerns about it,” Simoy said.

Senior Brandy Waters was also not interested in gender-integrated housing and thought that Vanderbilt already offered students with diverse housing options.

“I think it is good they are interviewing people about it to see what the interest is, but I feel like we are integrated already. We have suites of boys and girls on the same floors, but I don’t think it is necessary to have shared bathrooms,” Waters said. “If it ends up as people living with their boyfriends and girlfriends, it could just lead to problems if couples break up.”

Joslin Woods is a staff writer for the Vanderbilt Hustler. She is a contributor to the Student Free Press Association.

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