Juggling housing on a residential campus
by Ariel Glasman, News Co-Editor

Returning students received some surprising information when they opened an email from Judy Goetschius, Housing Facilities Coordinator. The purpose of her message was to inform students about available rooms for the 2009-2010 school year. Because Cornell is a primarily residential campus with over 90 percent of students living in a residence hall, room selection can be a time of anxiety and speculation as people find roommates, draw lottery numbers and search for a new dwelling.

By the time Goetschius’s message was sent out, rooms in Clock Tower, New Hall and the 10th Avenue Apartments had already been spoken for. Eight buildings remained for students seeking triples, quads, singles and doubles. Of those, Olin, Merner and Bowman-Carter are for upper-class students, while residents in Dows, Tarr, Pauley-Rorem and Pfeiffer can expect to share the building with incoming first years. Within these buildings, one can find either coed or single-sex living, but there have been revisions to this. One of the most drastic changes came to Merner. Merner, which has traditionally seen a mix of males and females, is now almost entirely male. Only four double rooms are available for female students, as well as five singles (one of which is reserved for the RA). This is largely due to Clock Tower, which is three-fourths female.

For women who are looking to reside in a double, Olin and Bowman-Carter are still available. Second and fourth-floors Olin are all-female and Bowman-Carter remains the only female residence hall on campus. Still searching for a coed floor? Pfeiffer, which was renovated last fall and winter, has nine double rooms available for females as well, though this number is less than the 18 double rooms for males.

Student reaction has been varied, with many speaking out against the way rooms were chosen. “As a female and a junior next year I don’t want my choices to be limited to Bowman or Olin,” said one student (who preferred to remain anonymous) participating in room selection for triples. “I feel like women were left out.”

Taking their critiques a step further, a group of unnamed students have also circulated a petition that, among other things, asks for more student involvement in the committee that selects rooms. This overall dissatisfaction was reflected by an anonymous rising senior who said, “I lived in Pfeiffer my freshman year and I loved the integration with different classes and genders. Now, I feel like they are partitioning us by year and by gender. They don’t want us to mix.”

Shannon Peserik, second year, also found herself frustrated by the limited options available.“Merner is one of the nicer dorms that people usually want to live in, so I think they should open it up to more people, i.e. girls, and spread the boys throughout the other dorms.” She and her friends were not looking forward to the housing selection process. “We had quite a few problems with it at the beginning of this year due to the amount of new students they let in. With the amount that they charge students to come here I think they should at least renovate Rood and make it into dorms instead of offices.”

Despite the divide, both women and men are rethinking their housing situations because of poor lottery numbers, coupled with class standing. Chris Sedar, first year, is planning to live in Olin and had mixed thoughts on the same-sex layout of the floors. “Being male I think it would cool to have a lot of guys to hang with, but I also like chilling with the girls every once in a while.”