Senior Dave Russell has to duck his head when he walks into his room, for fear that his tall frame will hit the low pipes running along the ceiling just an inch above him. While this inconvenience is a disadvantage to Russell, he enjoys--for the most part--being one of only 463 seniors who chose to live on West Campus this year, compared with about 530 in previous years.
Due to new housing assignment rules or just personal preference, many students decide to live off campus their last year at Duke. While apartments or houses can offer the luxuries of personal space and independence, the seniors who do live on campus find the convenience overwhelmingly favorable. These seniors don't have to deal with parking on a daily basis just to get to class. They don't worry about cooking all their meals. And they often are quite happy living with selective groups, blocks, or perhaps independents.
However, some seniors believe a true sense of community--something the administration has tried to foster with its new residential life plan--seems to be missing from their lives.
Russell admits that being able to stop by his room between classes or easily getting home after a night with friends are the clearest advantages to living on campus. When he was a freshman, he felt that only seniors and maybe a few lucky juniors could get singles on campus, and he was ready to wait his turn. It happened to be a lot more trouble than he thought, when as a senior he saw better housing going to sophomores because of new rules mandating all sophomores live on West Campus.
"It seems odd that a university, which has made such a big deal recently about creating a sense of community on campus, would adopt a policy that drives people off campus, and makes it more difficult for those students living off campus to get to campus," he wrote in an e-mail.
Fellow senior Erin Allingham, currently the president of the Women's Studies selective house in the West-Edens Link, chose to live on campus because she said all her older friends were happy living there for four years. She agreed, however, that the sophomores on West and their linked housing from freshman dorms are pushing upperclassmen off campus.
"It ruins the fairly tightly knit community that Duke boasts," Allingham said.
Senior Paul Hutchison agreed, noting that the new residential structure has further separated the student body into smaller groups. As a member of Sigma Chi fraternity, Hutchison has lived in section for three years and praises the sense of community among the brothers brought about by living together. He said, however, that the interaction among independents and within quads has diminished to a low level.
"I see very few doors open. It doesn't look like there's a lot of interaction [among independents]," Hutchison said. "And I haven't seen any sort of quad pride that was [evident] the past two or three years."
Others expressed hope that sense of community would improve in future years. They agreed that having sophomores on West has disrupted a sense of community for upperclassmen.
"Maybe for upcoming classes, it will foster a new sense of community... but any change you make is going to affect the people who are not used to it," said Julie Cooper, a senior and member of Maxwell House.
For the few seniors who remain on campus, they are now forced to deal with the changes of what Cooper calls a "forced community." For example, Cooper said that there are so few seniors on campus that they are likely to greet each other, even if they do not know each other well, just because it is unusual to see a familiar face.
Bill Burig, assistant dean of residence life, recognized that seniors may not want to live on campus. Instead of enforcing a mandatory policy for all four years, Duke has mandated that students live on campus for at least three of their four years. Burig, who said the decision reflects the general tendency of students to live on campus at least three years, also said much can be learned in a residential environment.
"[What students can learn in dorms] parallels what students learn in the classroom," Burig said.
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