Students push for gender-neutral housing policy

While students have yet to receive their housing lottery numbers, some say their fate has already been sealed for next year.

Two weeks ago, the administration announced that gender-neutral housing—which would allow for mixed-gender doubles—will not be available for the upcoming school year.

The proposal came from several LGBT student groups and council representatives, who presented it to the administration in the fall. Administrators recently announced that, because they needed more time to make the decision, Columbia will not be instituting any new gender-neutral housing policies for the 2010-2011 academic year. Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger said that the administration is seriously considering a pilot program for 2011-2012.

Two weeks after the decision—which came as a surprise to many groups—a host of organizations and council representatives are mobilizing further efforts in an attempt to ensure that next year’s housing selection will include some form of gender-neutral housing.

“I don’t think the decision was a rejection of the policy itself, so much as it was a need for buffering up what we already have,” Sarah Weiss, policy vice president for Columbia College Student Council, said, while acknowledging the distress and frustration many students are feeling. “We’re optimistic that progress will be made, and while we’re working on a new timeline, we’re definitely working towards the same goal.”

Weiss, alongside representatives from GendeRevolution, Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, and the Columbia Queer Alliance, is now in discussion with the administration about assembling a task force of students, administrators, and faculty, which will be geared toward clarifying and adding stipulations to the housing proposal in response to any administrative concerns.

“The purpose of this task force is to bring everyone together, instead of holding a million different meetings and having everyone work separately,” Miranda Elliot, CC ’10 and president of GendeRevolution, said.

The student coalition also created an online petition several days ago that is open to all undergraduate students, which is intended to garner campus-wide support for gender-neutral housing. As of Monday, the petition had 850 signatures.

Avi Edelman, president of Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, said that the administration told them the policy delay was partly because they had not seen enough student support. “The idea of the petition is to show the administration that this is an issue that a lot of people on campus support and care about, and I think that this campus-wide support is something that they hadn’t gotten a lot of before.” Edelman is the vice president of the Columbia University College Democrats, who are also a part of the effort.

But not all students actively support this measure. Derek Turner, CC ’12 and director of communications for the Columbia University College Republicans, said that his group isn’t taking a stance on the issue. “When it comes to the LGBTQ community, what they choose to do really doesn’t affect us. If you’re a student here ... you should have the choice of doing whatever you like.”

While the organizers are pleased with the number of petition signatures the petition has received thus far, some say that this is a disappointing indication that the proposal was ready to be enacted for this year’s housing selection process.

“The support demonstrated by students over the past 72 hours [since the petition was first created] demonstrates that the student body was clearly ready for gender neutral housing,” Sean Udell, vice president of the Columbia College class of 2011 and treasurer of the Columbia Queer Alliance, said.

Members of LGBT student groups not directly involved in creating the policy also expressed frustration about what they said was a lack of communication between students and the administration, one which dashed expectations about the proposal’s enactment for this year.

“We all thought this was going to pass. ... Housing seemed in favor of it ... and we were just really surprised that the administration wasn’t able to push it through,” said Anna Steffens, BC ’10, co-president of Q, and SGA representative for the Diversity Committee. She said that Q plans to issue a statement expressing its dismay about the decision, as well as its optimism as student groups move forward.

Housing administrators, though, countered that they had never said that the policy itself would be enacted, but rather that its feasibility from a technical standpoint was highly probable. Scott Wright, vice president of student auxiliary and business services, said that housing is only responsible for the practical facilities aspects of the proposal.

After receiving the proposal, he contacted the housing system company, StarRez, who reported that it would in fact be possible to allow gender-neutral housing selection. The housing administration reported this to students shortly afterward.

“I think I was always 100 percent clear that the decision did not rest solely with me. ... From our end, we got back to the students pretty quickly about what StarRez said,” he said.

Other administrators who were involved in the ultimate decision acknowledged that they could have been clearer about the process earlier on.

“One of the places that, in retrospect, we could’ve maybe been better at, is maybe advising students around what the process is,” Shollenberger said. “There were a lot of different offices involved in this decision-making. We didn’t get the proposal until late fall semester.”

And while student groups said that it was troublesome that the University responded just two weeks before housing selection, rendering the prospect of immediate change impossible, they understand the implications of attempting substantial change so quickly.

“There’s a different time horizon for students and administrators,” Janelle Batta, BC ’11 and a member of the SGA’s Diversity Committee, said. Batta spearheaded the gender-blind rooming campaign at Barnard in December 2008, and her proposal was passed by the SGA. “Many administrators are here for 15 years, and we’re here for four years.”

In response to the administration’s announcement that it will be seriously considering a pilot program for the 2011-2012 school year and the implementation of a gender-neutral housing policy for 2012-2013, some student group members say that change should come sooner.

Cheryl Gladstone, a second-year student in the MBA program and co-president of Cluster Q, an LGBT organization at the Business School, said that she was disappointed with the decision.

Gladstone, a graduate of Stanford University, where gender-neutral housing is permitted and where she lived with a male student in a double, said, “If Columbia wants to attract and retain the best talent and present itself as an academic thought leader, they need to stop trying to be a follower and really be a leader on LGBTQ issues.”

Amber Tunnell contributed reporting.

kim.kirschenbaum@columbiaspectator.com