Talking Stick - July/August 2011 - 41

Making Gender-Neutral Housing Work
One common thread that runs through both new and established programs is the need to reinforce a connection to students; on many campuses, they have been the ones who identiﬁed the need for genderneutral housing and brought the idea forward. In response, at Ohio University, information and opinions were solicited from multiple sources: housing staff and administration, university administrators, and the students themselves. “A committee was formed within residential housing to explore the possibility through benchmarking other programs and reviewing research. The committee was asked to make a recommendation to our department, which would then be reviewed by the vice president for student affairs and university administration,” says Sheets. “The committee was comprised of professional staff, resident assistants, and students. In the midst of our exploration, Student Senate also initiated a review of the concept that included a survey completed by more than 1,700 students. We joined together to ﬁnalize our recommendations.” and staff accessibility. Then we formed a subcommittee that traveled to the areas of campus that were identiﬁed as good possibilities. They came back to the larger committee with recommendations, which the committee then delivered to the assignments staff, who made the ﬁnal selection,” says Walker. Ohio University offered genderneutral housing in two facilities of different conﬁgurations, one suitestyle and one with a traditional ﬂoor layout. “For the upcoming pilot year, the number of interested students will ﬁll the suites only, so we did not have a need to use the traditional ﬂoor,” says Sheets. Suite-style facilities are a popular option for gender-neutral housing because of the private or semi-private bathrooms, as well as the ability to keep residents in close proximity to one another. Nikki Cole, housing assignment specialist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, reserves ﬁve six-person suites for gender-neutral housing each year: “Using suites gives us the ﬂexibility of expanding gender free into other suites in the same location pretty easily without having to make any changes within the physical structure of the

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Choosing the Housing
Making the decision to offer genderneutral housing involves one obvious consideration: the housing itself. Residence halls designed and built more than 20 or 30 years ago may not have the most desired amenities for this special housing option, which requires a blend of privacy and sensitivity while also encouraging the development of community and personal connections. Choosing the location for gender-neutral assignments can be even more challenging for institutions having residence halls that are already over capacity or in need of renovation. “We used input from the assignments staff regarding ADA-accessible areas, ﬂexibility, bathroom conﬁgurations, current demand, community space,

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Talking Stick - July/August 2011

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