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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Council approves gender-neutral housing for 2011

Community Council has approved a proposal to implement gender-neutral housing for all sophomores, juniors and seniors beginning with rooming assignments for the fall semester of

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2011.

In a meeting on Nov. 22, the Council unanimously supported the proposal to allow for co-ed housing assignments for students living in doubles.  This proposal, titled the Rooming Choice Act, was also unanimously supported by the Student Government Association (SGA) last spring.

Although it is estimated that less than 10 percent of the student body will take advantage of this option, the approval marks a milestone for the College in challenging the heteronormative implications of current policies.

Student organizer and Middlebury Open Queer Association (MOQA) co-president Tony Huynh ’13 commented that Community Council’s endorsement “shows there is strong support from the student body. Housing is a privacy and security issue that affects all students' mental health and identities. To … reaffirm this unanimously sends a strong, clear message to the administration that having the ability to choose whom we live with makes our campus a more unified, diverse community.”

Gender-neutral housing already exists in several peer institutions, including NESCAC members Williams and Bowdoin.

The Council chose to implement the policy for sophomores, juniors and seniors only because of concerns over how the policy would affect first-year rooming assignments based on First-Year Seminars and the Commons.

In a follow-up meeting on Nov. 29, Lark Mulligan ’11 and Viveka Ray-Mazumder ’11 presented a proposal to establish a Gender Council.

The Gender Council would seek to prevent gender problems on campus, provide guidance for implementing policies related to gender and educate the student body on gender issues. The council would be comprised of students, faculty and staff and would make direct policy recommendations to Old Chapel, similar to the structure of the existing Environmental Council and Community Council.

“The Gender Council is necessary as a permanent institution in order to sustain long-term progress at the school in proactive, rather than reactive, ways,” wrote Ray-Mazumder in an email. “In the past we've seen numerous ad-hoc committees produce important reports that lay out progressive policy change for the school, but these recommendations are rarely implemented.  This is largely because there is no standing body to hold the institution accountable to these necessary changes.”

“The GC is necessary as a permanent institution because the College will always be making policy decisions related to gender and sexuality,” added Mulligan.

Community Council voted to table the motion to establish a Gender Council due to concerns over the specific mission of the group and how it would interact with other institutions on campus.

Council members wanted to ensure that the proposed council’s focus is neither too narrow nor too broad in order to simultaneously act as an effective body while not excluding other diversity issues that might arise.

“There’s concern about what [a Gender Council] will ultimately mean for broader issues of diversity on campus,” commented Dean of the College, Chief Diversity Officer and Co-Chair of Community Council Shirley Collado.

“We understand our identities as existing in a matrix —  we are not just gendered bodies, we are raced bodies, classed bodies, dis/abled bodies, etc.  The Gender Council cannot talk about gender in isolation from these other identities. Diversity is in the purview of the Council, but we are imaging diversity in a transformative way, and are using gender as a lens to express this,” said Ray-Mazumder.

Mulligan explained how a Gender Council is necessary due to the sensitivity that often surrounds the issue.

“Students also often find the policy proposal process to be inaccessible — particularly for issues related to gender, race, sexuality, etc. It can be particularly difficult for people of marginalized identities to trust and interact with authority figures. The Gender Council will show to students that the school sees gendered policy as an important issue, and will give people with policy ideas a more direct, efficient and reliable avenue to policymakers,” wrote Mulligan in an e-mail.

The proposal for a Gender Council is a result of collaboration among multiple organizations, students, faculty and staff on campus.

“While these organizations  [such as MOQA, Women of Color and Feminist Action at Middlebury] are working really hard to change the culture of the campus … they don’t necessarily have the direct access to make the policy changes they want to make,” commented Ray-Mazumder at the Nov. 29 meeting.

The Gender Council would address the issues of bathrooms that are accessible to all genders, retention of faculty of color, support networks for students that face harassment while studying abroad, gender issues that arise within classroom curriculum and gender language in official College materials.

Community Council will re-convene to discuss the proposal in a meeting on Jan. 3.


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