Like flies to wanton boys are we to Residence Life and Housing Services. They toy with us for sport." I think Shakespeare said something like that.
I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb when I say that housing is one of the least popular aspects of Duke. If we all shared a cafeteria, RLHS and Duke parking would be sitting by themselves at some corner table.
It's hard to find a Duke student who particularly likes Duke housing, but I can't help but feel like I have been particularly affected by RLHS' wrath during my four years. After teasing me with the second-biggest double on East Campus freshman year (according to the room's former tenants), I encountered a series of Jobian misfortunes and bad luck with respect to Duke housing.
Freshman year, after several friends worked to assemble a block of the best and the brightest, we found out that blocks could not be co-ed, forcing us to rebuild. After picking up the pieces of the best hypothetical block the world has ever seen, we ended up in West Campus' worst location. After telling my roommate "Not all of Edens is that far away, but if you're in 3B, you might as well drop out of Duke," I ended up in... Edens 3B. Many people at Duke don't even know where that is.
I tried to console myself by enjoying the air-conditioning, but due to a "mold problem" they shut that off two weeks into the year. Luckily, they fixed it in time for me to have AC in January. Living in Edens 3B adds about 15 minutes to your walk to the academic quad, not to mention the Bryan Center.
Luckily, I got to live somewhere junior year that would make me yearn for the proximity of Edens 3B: Central Campus.
Sure, not every Duke student has had the same bad experience that I have, and there have certainly been improvements (co-ed blocks are available now, and sophomores can choose to live on Central Campus), but there is still a long way to go. And because New Campus may be another victim of the bad economy for now, it's time to focus on some short-term solutions instead of ambitious redesigns.
Some mild improvements can be made quickly and easily: The lottery system could be tweaked so that someone who gets a bad number as a rising sophomore should have the advantage going into his or her junior year (while still respecting seniority, similar to how registration windows work). I can also think of no reason why blocks should be capped at 12 people and be limited only to roommate pairs. General improvements could also be made to Edens, Craven and Crowell, so that the disparity between the "good" quads and the "bad" ones is not so large.
One change that needs to be considered, however, but almost certainly won't, is the possibility of moving all fraternities and Selective Living Groups to Edens. RLHS seems to like to sell Edens as the most "communal" or "neighborhood-like" of all the quads. If that is the case, then why not reserve it for the only communities on campus that are self-selecting and maintain an extended residency in the same location? The Edens pod system is supposed to be ideal for small blocks, but in reality blocks often have to arrange themselves around singles or split themselves amongst two pods, or even two floors. SLGs, however, would not have this problem, because they would allocate every room in their pods amongst themselves.
Moving SLGs to Edens would also eliminate a lot of the problems with that quad. The social isolation that comes with living so far away from everything would be alleviated by the fact that the people being "isolated" are already a relatively autonomous social group. Secondly, moving SLGs off of main West would allow for a more cohesive social unit among independents-something aimed at, but not likely to be attained, by the new East Meets West initiative.
Completely revamping the fraternity and SLG living arrangements, however, would likely be viewed by some as a colossal injustice and another in a series of anti-social and anti-Greek moves by the Duke administration. It could be viewed as another very public failure of RLHS. In reality, however, it might be the best option for all of us.
John Schneider is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Monday.
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