Challenges for specialized campus housing

Housing is usually thought of as a cornerstone of the early college experience. It’s where, as freshmen, students meet friends that stay with them all four years of college. It’s where they get to know the local area through Residence-Life-sponsored programming and where they go to decompress after long days of classes, meetings and other commitments.

But at a school where 46 percent of students live off-campus, it is worth considering what the on-campus student life at St. Joe’s offers us, or what it can offer students who benefit from the close-knit communities of campus life.

For many, specialized housing offers the chance to find increased support while staying integrated with the larger campus community.

Specialized housing can center on a common interest, as with freshman housing communities, or a common need for the students it serves. Like many colleges and universities, St. Joe’s offers specialized housing in the form of Residential Learning Communities (RLCs).

There are currently six RLCs offered at St. Joe’s; themes for these communities range from the business RLC, which fosters community among current and prospective business majors to the emerging leaders RLC, which develops leadership skills among its first-year residents. Only three RLCs—the Romero or service learning RLC, the arts RLC and the business RLC—are currently open to upperclassmen.

As the university expands in accordance with its “Think Anew, Act Anew” strategic growth plan, which it unveiled in 2017, there is an opportunity to respond to a unique and critical need for specialized housing which targets not only upperclassmen, but students who want a housing community conscious of their individual lifestyles and identities, rather than just their academic or personal interests.

Sustainable living communities cater to an increasing population of students who want to take campus-wide sustainability initiatives a step further by living with like-minded students who are dedicated to environmentally-friendly living. 

Recovery housing and substance-free housing offer students a chance to live with others who are currently in recovery from substance use or wish to live in a space free of alcohol and drugs.

Several Philadelphia area schools, including Drexel, Swarthmore and Villanova, currently offer recovery or substance-free housing.

Plans to open a recovery housing option at St. Joe’s in the Fall 2018 semester have been postponed, with university officials hoping to launch a pilot program next fall.

While there is a need for recovery housing at St. Joe’s, the community would likely need to be housed in its own space on campus to meet its commitment to a substance-free environment for all residents. An email sent out to the St. Joe’s community last semester named Morris Quad Townhouses as a potential space for the recovery housing.

Additionally, there is a chance to expand on the progress St. Joe’s made last year in opening all-gender (gender neutral) bathrooms on campus. Currently located in a select few buildings, including Bellarmine, Barbelin and Campion, all-gender bathrooms marked a monumental step forward in St. Joe’s push to become more inclusive.

Gender-neutral housing would give students of different genders the option to share a living space and would take St. Joe’s closer to becoming a truly affirming place for its transgender students.

Currently, transgender students can live by themselves or be paired with roommates according to their assigned sex, rather than their true gender identity.

Opening a community of gender neutral housing in an existing residential building would make St. Joe’s one of the first Jesuit universities to offer such a community. While this may be the most challenging to implement of the prospective specialized housing communities due to St. Joe’s affiliation with the Catholic Church, it is by no means unachievable.

There are a number of challenges St. Joe’s would face in implementing these ideas, first and foremost of which is the limited space on campus. Logistically, many of these prospective communities would need to utilize existing residential buildings.

However, the implementation of the University’s ten-year strategic plan, which aims to “update the campus housing master plan to align with current and anticipated student demographics, operational needs and programmatic opportunities,” may break ground for new buildings on campus.

Student input would be critical when forming these new communities. While having mentors and facilitators on site would be especially helpful in meeting the learning goal component of specialized housing, students would need to be consistently consulted on ways to improve their housing environments.

Student-centered specialized housing would need to be student-directed to be truly deserving of its name.

—The Hawk Staff