Erik Youngdahl
and Michelle Garcia share a dorm room at Connecticut's
Wesleyan University. But they say there's no funny business
going on. Really. They mean it.
They have set up
their beds side by side like Lucy's and Ricky's in I Love
Lucy, and they avert their eyes when one of them
is changing clothes.
''People are
shocked to hear that it's happening and even that it's
possible,'' said Youngdahl, a 20-year-old sophomore. But
''once you actually live in it, it doesn't actually
turn into a big deal.''
In the prim
1950s, college dorms were off-limits to members of the
opposite sex. Then came the 1970s, when male and female
students started crossing paths in coed dormitories.
Now, to the astonishment of some baby-boomer parents,
a growing number of colleges are going even further:
coed rooms.
At least two
dozen schools, including Brown University, the University of
Pennsylvania, Oberlin College, Clark University, and the
California Institute of Technology, allow some or all
students to share a room with anyone they choose --
including someone of the opposite sex. This spring, as
students sign up for next year's rooms, more schools are
following suit, including Stanford University.
As shocking as it
sounds to some parents, some students and schools say
it's not about sex.
Instead, they say
the demand is mostly from heterosexual students who
want to live with close friends who happen to be of the
opposite sex. Some gay students who feel more
comfortable rooming with someone of the opposite sex
are also taking advantage of the option.
''It ultimately
comes down to finding someone that you feel is compatible
with you,'' said Jeffrey Chang, a junior at Clark in
Worcester, Mass., who cofounded the National Student
Genderblind Campaign, a group that is pushing for
gender-neutral housing. ''Students aren't doing this to make
a point. They're not doing this to upset their parents. It's
really for practical reasons.''
Couples do
sometimes room together, an arrangement known at some
schools as ''roomcest.'' Brown explicitly discourages
couples from living together on campus, be they gay or
straight. But the University of California, Riverside,
has never had a problem with a roommate couple
breaking up midyear, said James C. Smith, assistant director
for residence life.
Most schools
introduced the couples option in the past three or four
years. So far, relatively few students are taking part. At
the University of Pennsylvania, which began offering
coed rooms in 2005, about 120 out of 10,400 students
took advantage of the option this year.
At UC Riverside,
which has approximately 6,000 students in campus
housing, about 50 have roommates of the opposite sex. The
school has had the option since 2005.
Garcia and
Youngdahl live in a house for students with an interest in
Russian studies. They said they were already friendly, and
they didn't think they would be compatible with some
of the other people in the house.
''I had just
roomed with a boy. I was under the impression at the time
that girls were a little bit neater and more quiet,''
Youngdahl said. ''As it turns out, I don't see much of
a difference from one sex to the other.''
Garcia, 19,
admitted, ''I'm incredibly messy.''
Parents aren't
necessarily thrilled with boy-girl housing.
Debbie Feldman's
20-year-old daughter, Samantha, is a sophomore at
Oberlin in Ohio and plans to room with her platonic friend
Grey Caspro, a straight guy, next year. Feldman said
she was shocked when her daughter told her.
''When you have a
male and female sharing such close quarters, I think
it's somewhat delusional to think there won't be sexual
tension,'' the 52-year-old Feldman said. ''Maybe this
generation feels more comfortable walking around in
their underwear. I'm not sure that's a good thing.''
Still, Feldman
said her daughter is in college partly to learn life
lessons, and it's her decision. Samantha said she assured
her mom she thinks of Caspro as a brother.
''I'm really
close to him, and I consider him one of my really good
friends,'' she said. ''I really trust him. That trust makes
it work.'' (AP)