House model discussion questions

Residential life at Duke has always been marked by pivotal changes—from the creation of the all-freshman East Campus to the new Keohane Quadrangle 4E dormitory. The Fall 2012 shift to the house model will give students the chance to play a role in just such a pivotal shift. Yesterday, we challenged students to make substantive arguments about the details of the house model. Today, we will elaborate questions that deserve further discussion from both administrators and students.

House size has major implications for the success of the model. The houses aim to hold between 30 to 70 students, but will range in size from 13 to more than 100 beds, Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said Sunday. Smaller houses may enable groups of students to benefit from tightly knit communities, but the differences in size raise a couple of concerns. Will houses with more students have social leverage over houses with fewer students? Will smaller houses have a diluted experience due to interactions with fewer students? Since houses will get funding from the University to hold events, will the money be evenly distributed to groups or distributed proportionally to size?

Likewise, there is some uncertainty with how communities that develop on East Campus will transition to West Campus and Central Campus. Between 2002 and 2006, the administration experimented with linking East Campus dorms to West Campus residential quadrangles but ended the program in an effort to create a stronger residential community. The freshman experience on East already establishes random smaller communities, similar to the communities the house model hopes to create. Why not leverage these already formed groups to enhance community on West and Central?

The house assignment process demands discussion. As it stands, house assignment resembles a modified Room Picks process, where students with high lottery numbers will get the first pick of houses. Can this process preserve unique identities among houses over time? Should more qualitative criteria determine who lives in which house? And will students who have a poor living experience their first year be able to easily switch houses the next year? Will they be able to bring their close friends with them?

The house model aims to create equity in residential living among all students. With affiliated groups constituting a significant percentage of the student body, the model aims to give community to students who choose not to affiliate themselves. But, in this new process, students will only be able to block with up to five other students—down from 12 total in the current system. Unaffiliated students will face constraints that affiliated students, who can live with large groups, can still avoid. Can changes to the model better accommodate unaffiliated communities?

The house model plans to allow students the right of return and hopes to create a residential experience that encourages seniors to stay on campus. The model aims to create cross-class communities by requiring houses to have 50 percent sophomores, 25 percent juniors and 25 percent seniors. Currently 17 percent of undergraduates live off campus, but this could change with the successful implementation of the house model. Should the three-year housing contract change in response to this?

Focused debate can only lead to a better house model. It is time for students to take up this challenge.