Residential Life to me holds a lot of promise for moving young people in the direction of community. I remember one of the best communal experiences I had occurred in a residential hall complex called the Jungle.
The Jungle was so named because of the wild activities that occurred in the dormitory complex called North Campus at the University of Connecticut. Mostly freshman reside there, deciding to leave for better or tamer dormitories by for their sophomore years. There was an exception to this rule, for which I was the glad beneficiary.
I arrived on campus the same year that they began coed dormitories. This was an experiment for select dormitories, and Litchfield Hall of the Jungle was one of those selected. My first year there the second and fourth floor housed guys, the first and third housed gals. After that first year the formula was switched around.
Coed dormitories, and even coed apartments, are now nothing new. Behavior in a coed dormitory now can be as wild as the behavior in the all-male dormitory of an earlier era. Back in the early seventies coed dormitories were a big deal. Mixing in men and women was a stroke of genius if their goal at the time was to sooth the savage beast.
Litchfield Hall had about a 60% retention rate every year for the four years I was there. The majority of my freshman cohorts were gone by their senior years, but not all of them. Two things stood out to me about Litchfield Hall that are a reflection of good community living and explain why we had such a high retention rate in a “freshman” dormitory.
We did a lot of activities together. An example would be organizing a large group to go a campus event such as a play, and then coming back for a party in one of the common rooms. Having all gone to the play together, male and female, 1st – 4th floors, provided a commonality that made our parties more like the ones you find when friends get together in a home rather than the usual dormitory party.
The other thing that struck me was how responsible we were. As I later became a Hall Director this was impressed upon me all the more. An example of this is when we broke a window playing soccer in the corridor. There was no hiding from it, though there no reporting of it, either. We simply got a collection to buy a new window and put it in ourselves. Extraordinary!
Responsibility and oneness are two of the key ingredients for community I gleaned during the American Discovery Trail journey. Perhaps the reason I could observe and formulate these necessary ingredients was because I already experienced them in other stages of my life.
