When I first explored the nuances of the system, I was excited by the apparent freedom to choose my living arrangement. It didn’t take long, however, to realize that room draw offers a seeming liberalism of choice that is, in fact, decidedly illiberal. This system, like most systems, has a catch. Actually, it has two of them: mandatory single-sex rooms and the immovable residential college system. And both reflect outlooks as anachronistic as they are unnecessarily rigid.
Coed housing isn’t for everybody; personally, I don’t want any girl to see how much of a pig I am or start worrying about the middle button of my boxers. But nonetheless, it represents the preference of a considerable number of students. Their preference stems from the basic hypothesis that this freedom would enhance their living experience. I see no ways in which Nassau Hall could claim injury from enacting this policy; thus, no rationale exists for its rejection.
Of course, I anticipate opposition from conservative voices on campus who will argue that the sexual tension that could arise in coed rooms would be inappropriate and problematic.
But whether or not these groups are willing to admit it, such tensions are already possible under the current system. The same sexual tension that can arise between homosexual roommates can also arise between heterosexual men and women. Unless conservatives are prepared to argue that all housing should be converted to singles to fairly eliminate all such tensions, their objection is unfounded.
Like the rejection of gender-neutral housing, our residential college system also maintains a stranglehold on room draw, inconveniencing the campus community and justified only by mistaken precedent.
I agree with what many others have said on this page: Despite the substantial efforts of Princeton administrators, our residential college system fails in its aim to foster any real sense of community. So inept is the system that if I had to present it to potential Princeton students, I don’t know what I could be proud to show them.
Would I show them our deformed, anarchic intramural leagues? Would I describe our model as something other than a cheap imitation of Yale’s superior system? Or would I admit to them what Nassau Hall will not — that the fanciful ideal of the residential college system romanticized on Princeton’s website and pamphlets, in fact, taints the experience that such literature is meant to preview? It’s not that Princeton lacks communities; rather, the communities we identify with are products of residential proximity or campus activities and not, as Princeton’s officials would have us believe, of some collegial allegiance.
The room draw should recognize this and permit sophomores to live beyond the jurisdictions of the residential colleges. For instance, I am a soon-to-be Rockefeller College sophomore who might want to live with friends beyond Holder Hall next year. Why can’t I be a Rockyite one year and a Wilsonian the next? Flexibility isn’t going to rescue a crumbling system, but it will make us more satisfied with the crumbs.
I would be remiss were I not to concede that there are some positive aspects of the current system. The dining hall does bring members of the college together and is a place to see familiar faces. The college dean and my personal academic adviser, who are both terrific, represent positive elements of the residential college system.
But what is good about the residential college system is both incidental and maintainable even without a residential college umbrella. My academic adviser could still advise me even if I weren’t living in her residential college. And opening up room draw does not have to dissolve the residential college. Princeton should maintain the dining halls and the general college system but allow sophomores to join whatever college they draw into.
Princeton needs to keep King Woodrow in the past and unclench its iron fist. We need a new standard-bearer who can usher in a new age at Princeton and organize living arrangements for the 21st century, where men and women live together and the residential colleges are our homes and not our burdens. So how’s about it, Shirley?
Peter Zakin is a freshman from New York. He can be reached at pzakin@princeton.edu.
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