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In the Woodstock era, the advent of coed dorms caused a stir, with Life magazine proclaiming the development "an intimate revolution on campus." Coed floors came along over the next two decades, giving college students immediate proximity to each other. The next step, coed suites and bathrooms, brought the sexes even closer together.Now, some colleges are crossing the final threshold, allowing men and women to share rooms. At the urging of student activists, more than 30 campuses across the country have adopted what colleges call gender-neutral rooming assignments, almost half of them within the past two years.Once limited to such socially liberal bastions as Hampshire College, Wesleyan University, and Oberlin College, mixed-gender housing has edged into the mainstream, although only a small fraction of students have taken advantage of the new policies so far. Clark and Dartmouth universities introduced mixed-gender rooms last fall, and Brown and Brandeis announced plans last month to follow suit.The University of Pennsylvania, Skidmore and Ithaca colleges, and Oregon State University also allow roommates of different genders. Students at New York, Harvard, and Stanford universities, among many others, are calling for gender-blind dormitory rooms."It's definitely a growing movement on campuses across the country," said Denise Darrigrand, dean of students at Clark, where about 30 students are living in mixed-gender rooms. "It's a new world, and gender has taken on all kinds of new definitions. It's about being more inclusive, and it's about keeping pace with the times."While the trend predictably prompts prurient thoughts, most coed roommates are just friends, students and college officials say.Most colleges discourage students who are romantically involved from living together, but a few schools freely admit that some roommates are in sexual relationships, which they say is none of their business.[[[[[[[[[[Supporters hail the trend as a key advance for homosexual and transgender students that eliminates a gender divide they see as outdated, particularly for a generation that has grown up with many friends of the opposite sex. Traditional rooming policies, they say, infringe upon students' rights and perpetuate gender segregation."Among Millennial students, whether it's race, gender, or nationality, the borders are coming down," said James Baumann of the Association of College and University Housing Officers. "The lines just aren't there anymore."But some observers say the policies promote promiscuity and represent political correctness run amok. And most colleges do not believe coed rooms are wise and see no reason for them.]]]]]]]]]]Bruce Reitman, dean of student affairs at Tufts University, where students have unsuccessfully pushed for gender-neutral housing in the past, said the university is willing to allow coed suites, but believes coed bedrooms raise practical and moral concerns."We're not ready to provide coed bedrooms," he said. "That's a position we don't see changing in the near future."To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
