Posted: 02/14/07

The new testoster-zone
Lyons Hall to become coed

Chris White | contributing writer
cwhite@smcvt.edu

Next year, male students won't have to sneak into Lyons Hall through laundry room windows or propped doors. In fact, the novelty of such stunts will wear off as male students will actually co-exist with first-year female students for the first time in the dorm's history.

First-year Jacqueline Cain lives in Lyons and says she enjoys the cleaner, quieter atmosphere it offers. (Chris White, photo)

Lyons is currently the only residence hall on the St. Michael’s College campus designated for females only, but come next fall as it will be coed like its neighboring residence halls Ryan, Joyce, and Alumni.

The single-sex situation

St. Michael’s Housing Coordinator Sheryl Fleury says the main reason Lyons will become coed next year is because of decreasing requests for female-only housing in recent years. Residence life is listening to the students and accommodating them, she says.

“The decline in requests for single-sex housing was one of the driving decisions to make Lyons coed,” she says. “There were less than 20 requests for single-sex housing last year. If there were a lot of requests for that type of housing, it would have stayed single-sex.”

Mike Samara, dean of students, says there were exactly 15 requests last summer for single-sex housing and 40 complaints from students or their parents who did not want to live in an all-female environment.

“I’ve received angry phone calls from students and parents who wanted coed housing but were not able to get into it,” Fleury says.

However, using a first come first serve basis, it has been difficult to keep incoming students happy with their initial living situation, Fleury says.

Next year, the first floor of Lyons will be all men, the third and fourth floors will be all women, and the second floor is still undecided, Samara says.

The final decision of what gender the floor will house will depend heavily upon the gender balance of the incoming first-year class, according to Fleury. If there are more women who need housing then it will be all women living on the second floor, yet the floor will most likely be split between both men and women.

Samara says that even though the residence hall is becoming coed, he still feels the residence life staff is accommodating requests for a single-sex environment with the third and fourth floors in Lyons being female-only.

“Housing options should be about giving students choices,” says Jerry Flanagan, St. Michael’s vice president for enrollment and marketing. “We want to provide options for meeting various desires of incoming students.”

Times change

With the arrival of women at St. Michael’s in the early 1970s, Lyons and Alumni acted as the all-female residence halls, while Ryan and Joyce acted as all-male residence halls, Fleury says. Eventually, she says, there were three first-year residence halls as there are today. The gender imbalance forced Joyce Hall to become coed and the trend continued from there.

"A coed residence hall seems less difficult to manage and I believe it has a positive and civilizing effect on the men who live there." - Jerry Flanagan, St. Michael's College vice president for enrollment and marketing

Fleury says that there are more financial repairs that need to be done in all-male halls than in all-female halls at the end of the year, so going coed has reduced the amount of damage in the halls.

“Over time, we’ve realized that all-male housing is not a good situation,” Flanagan says. “A coed residence hall seems less difficult to manage and I believe it has a positive and civilizing effect on the men who live there."

Samara says that he feels making Lyons coed is a good decision overall.

“People will be more settled coming in with their preference being fulfilled,” Samara says. “We want students to be as settled as possible so they can do their best work academically.”

Flanagan says he feels the switch to coed in Lyons Hall is a good decision based on where students are at. He says the college was not ready to abandon the single-sex living concept 20 years ago.

“In earlier years, women were looking for single-sex residences,” he says. “Now they are not requesting them."

About the proposed change, he says, "I would say it makes sense given what students are requesting for their housing options today."

First-year Jacqueline Cain says she thought the atmosphere in Lyons would be gossipy and chatty, but now she loves living in Lyons.

“I don’t care about being with all girls,” she says. “A lot of people said it would be full of drama but I’ve been fine with it.”

However, other female students who experienced life in Lyons do not feel the same way. Sophomore Deirdre Collins, who lived in Lyons last year, says she felt removed from the rest of campus while living in the dorm.

“I feel my experience was dampered,” she says. “It was hard to meet other people from other dorms because no one wanted to visit me in an all-girls dorm.”

Cain says she feels it has been hard for her to meet new people too, especially men. However, she says she is comfortable and there is no pressure in a female-only living situation.

“There are no weird situations where I’m walking to the bathroom in a towel or walking around in my pajamas and a guy walks by,” Cain says.

Next year, Lyons Hall will house its very first male students. (Chris White, photo)

Cain says one of the other benefits of living in Lyons is that it is legitimately cleaner and quieter than some of the other residence halls she has visited.

“I like how I can go out on weekends and then go back to Lyons and it’s quiet,” she says.

Collins says she agrees Lyons is quiet and it gave her a good place to study, but she also says she felt the authorities in Lyons were very strict.

“It felt safe and it was nice that people were looking out for you,” she says, “but it got annoying.”

She says one time a residence assistant (R.A) heard her music in her room while she had her friends over. Because of the time it took her to answer the door, the R.A started to search her room for alcohol. Collins says that when no illegal substances were found, the R.A. wrote them up for a noise violation.

She says the shift to coed housing should be a good change since she felt she missed out on some excitement while she lived there last year.

“I think it’s a good move to integrate the freshmen class,” she says. “It would have been better for me last year, but it’s bad for the girls who want to live around only girls. I guess they can live on the fourth floor and not have to worry.”