House model discourse must change

A look at the last few days in The Chronicle’s opinion page reveals that student backlash to the impending housing transition has reached a new high point. The reaction so far seems to be based on a perception that the transition process has been illegitimate and taken place behind administrative closed doors. The student voice—as embodied by incendiary columns, blogs and Facebook groups criticizing the administration—has been emotional, fueled more by anger than objections to house model details.

The time has come for a change in the house model discourse. In order for students and administrators to carry out this dialogue with success, it must tread away from nebulous accusations—buttressed by article snippets and one-line quotes—and move toward an evaluation of concrete elements of the house model.

In order for this shift to happen, more information needs to be brought to the table, by administrators and students alike. The lengthy, piecemeal nature of the transition process means that no single record of all discussions pertaining to the matter exists. Administrators have, in fact, consulted student groups for at least five years about the initiation and the implementation of a house model, but those events have not translated into widely disseminated information on the process, or a sense that the process has been legitimate.

Students groups like Duke Student Government and the now defunct Campus Council, along with any students who are civic-minded enough to make it to the administration’s town halls and open forums, have collected details about the house model over the years. Administrators have alluded to these details and offered students a broad picture of the house model in campus-wide emails and on the new house model blog. But contestation of these details has become the exception and not the rule.

As the implementation of the model looms near, the student-administration dialogue warrants more specific references to the details of the house model. What is needed is a comprehensive and public justification of the house model—published online and widely disseminated—to serve as a locus for creative argumentation about the house model.

This information need not come only from administrators. Those groups who have actively taken part in the construction of the house model, like DSG, should also work toward the goal of informing students about the particulars of the new house model.

By the same token, the burden here lies not only with administrators and student leaders, but also with students themselves. Discussion of the house model is not a new phenomenon, and plenty of information exists in The Chronicle archives about the specifics of the model. Students who intend to critique the house model must back up their arguments with facts and evidence, rather than rail against perceived injustice created by the administrative apparatus. Critics are right to call for transparency—but they can call for much more.

This debate can and should still happen. This transition has not yet taken place, and there is more than enough room for debate. Now is the time to turn from platitudes and backlash and begin a frank discussion of the specifics of the house mode—not a discussion of the character of its progenitors.