As students begin RoomPix 2011, administrators are announcing further details about the house model that will be implemented in Fall 2012.
The house model will feature approximately 70 affiliated and unaffiliated houses—49 on West Campus and up to 23 on Central Campus, said Joe Gonzalez, associate dean for residence life. The houses will vary in size, with smaller houses accommodating 20 to 30 students and larger houses with 60 to 90 students. Thirty houses will provide space for existing affiliated groups, which includes fraternities and selective living groups.
“We’re definitely putting emphasis on house community,” Gonzalez said. “There’s great value there, and there is also a desire to maintain and facilitate broader connections and broader community.”
The goal of the house model is three-fold, said Campus Council President Stephen Temple, a senior who has been working closely with Residence Life and Housing Services, administrators and other students to develop the model.
“[The model will] create equity within housing, build strong communities and friendships as we see flourish on East Campus and feature a three-class living structure,” he said.
The sorting ceremony
Freshmen will still be required to live on East Campus, but sophomores, juniors and seniors will be invited to live in their house for up to three years, Gonzalez said.
During RoomPix of their freshman year, affiliated rising sophomores will be placed in their corresponding houses, and unaffiliated students will be placed randomly, Gonzalez said. Residential groups will still conduct recruitment programs similar to the current process.
Gonzalez said decisions such as whether students will be able to switch houses after a year or live in the same room in consecutive years will be discussed soon. Administrators will try to place students returning from semesters abroad in their former houses but cannot guarantee that will be possible.
Preservation of blocking under the house model was one of the most important compromises students made with the administration, noted junior Leslie Andriani, chair of the Campus Council-sponsored student committee on the house model. The student committee is comprised of independent students as well as representatives from Interfraternity Council, National Panhellenic Council, Inter-Greek Council and Selective House Council. The Panhellenic Association does not have official representatives on the committee, though two committee members are in Panhellenic sororities, she added.
Gonzalez said, however, that blocks will have to be smaller–with four to six students–in order to avoid potential domination of one block in a small house.
“We’re still designing the nuances of how a student goes from East to either West or Central, but there is a consensus that there should be a pathway for a block of that size to get into a house together,” he said.
The opening of K4 residence hall—planned for Spring 2012—will accommodate two houses: one of 60 students and one of 90 students. K4 was designed with the house model in mind, Donna Lisker, associate dean of undergraduate education, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. Lisker has played a lead role in the development of the model.
But even with the addition of K4, depending on student demand beds may be limited for seniors.
“K4 assists when you have almost 150 beds being added, which is very helpful for unaffiliated students, but it doesn’t reposition our ability to accommodate students,” he said.
Space for affiliated groups
Gonzalez said the locations of SLGs and fraternities have not yet been determined.
“I would encourage all selectives to assume there is a strong possibility they are not going to be where they are now,” he said. “But then again, they could be.”
Administrators will seek student input, however. RLHS will be hosting two open forums for students to discuss and ask questions about the house model.
Student-administrator collaboration has been key in the developments so far, Temple said, adding that the next step is to reach out to Selective House Council and IFC to discuss how the model will affect them and how houses will be distributed throughout the campuses.
The Panhellenic Association is welcome to join in these conversations, Gonzalez said.
“Some ideas that have been brought up... include the possibility of having a ‘Panhel House’—similar to how we now have a Panhel housing section on Central,” former Panhellenic Association President Bogna Brzezinska, a senior, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday. “We have not heard anything about the desire for such a change. In my experience, women like being able to live with whomever they choose and not in a designated section.”
IFC President Erskine Love, a senior, also confirmed that IFC will have a role in shaping the new arrangements.
Back to the future
The shift to the house model is, at least in name, a return to Duke’s past.
Starting in the 1970s, Duke operated under a house model, but when the University decided to make East an all-freshmen campus in 1995, the house model began to disintegrate, said Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost of undergraduate education.
“Nobody thought through the consequence of having all sophomores live on West,” Nowicki said. “But then there was no room for juniors and seniors, so the whole idea of a house model was never explicitly done away with—it just died with no one saying, ‘Let’s kill it.’”
In 2002, Duke converted to the quadrangle model, somewhat out of necessity, Nowicki said. When he came to Duke in the early 2000s, he added that one of the first concerns students presented to him was dissatisfaction with the quadrangle model, which they felt did not provide a strong enough sense of inclusion or community. Nowicki then began planning an improved house model.
“It’s Duke’s first deep re-thinking of what it’s trying to do with its residential model since the creation of a first-year campus,” he said.
Nowicki has worked for nearly two-and-a-half years to develop plans for the house model with Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta.
Not all details have been finalized, however. Next year will undoubtedly be a transition year, Lisker said, adding that amending RoomPix and restructuring student governance are at the “top of the agenda.”
“We will continue to answer questions as they arise and to deal with whatever we haven’t anticipated,” Lisker said. “It will require flexibility and patience from everyone, but it will also be exciting to see it all come together.”
Creating communities
The house model will also facilitate a shift in Duke residential culture, though Moneta said the shift must be student-led.
Moneta said students will “grow” the houses into communities with distinct personalities. In turn, the University will provide financial and advising support and align dining and other amenities with the house system.
Lisker said the increased autonomy for houses under the new model will hopefully incentivize students to embrace the new system.
“Culture shifts are never easy,” Lisker said. “We expect that the houses will develop their own identities over time, organically, depending on the students who live there. We want to encourage that identity development through multiple means—friendly competitions in [intramural] sports, social events, signs and benches—as a way to help students feel connected to their houses.”
Nowicki said weaknesses of the current quadrangle model have helped administrators shape a house model that better generates a sense of community at Duke.
“We learned that 400 people in a quad doesn’t create an organic unit here at Duke,” Nowicki said. “[For example], you can live in Few [Quadrangle] and see the whole thing and get from one place to another, but it’s like Hogwarts or something– who knows which way the staircases really go.”
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