The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2 - 64

Carrie A. Kortegast

While all first-year students were required to
live in first-year housing, upper class students
were able to apply to special interest housing
or enter the housing lottery. Despite having
a residency requirement, recently there had
been a housing shortage on campus due to
renovations, which took 500 spaces offline. This
housing shortage resulted in junior and senior
students being able to apply to live off campus.
One afternoon, Adler, Chase, Alex, Taylor,
and Sadie were hanging out in the living room
of Spectrum, the LGBTQ Resource Center, dis-

The goal is not to generalize
the experiences of all LGBTQ
college students in campus
housing but rather to understand
the experiences of these
particular students that might
raise questions and introduce
new areas of inquiry ... at other

Alex chimed in with, "it's interesting to have
this place where people talk about, you know,
they talk about gender and they talk about sexuality and they talk about life with no boundaries and that is, that's, that's cool."
Despite never being a resident of Stevens
Hall, Adler added:
A lot of Stevens feels like a safe space for me
because they've sort of, like a lot of Stevens
students have made the effort to make it
comfortable for queer people, cause there's,
there's a lot of queer people in Stevens.
The conversation continued with the students
discussing how supportive, welcoming, and
inclusive Stevens Hall is. Alex commented,
"They recently became gender neutral on two
floors so everybody's like living together."
However, this statement was quickly clarified
that residents of the hall informally designated
the bathroom as all-gender, but the rooms are
singles, thus single-gender housing.

cussing their housing plans for next year. Alex
and Sadie were chatting excitedly about being
admitted into Stevens Hall. Sadie shared:

Soon after, someone makes the comment
that Stevens Hall is not available to all students. Taylor commented, "You have to apply,
and there's like an audition process basically,
where you get interviewed, and if they like you,
you can go live there. But where does that leave
[you if you don't get in]?"

I've just always felt that Stevens was a very
welcoming space for everyone regardless
of any identity or any activities. There's
much less policing surrounding behavior
or appearance. It's supposed to be like a

The students shifted to discussing their previous housing experiences. One of the special
housing options at Willow allows a group of 10
students to apply to live in a Clark townhouse
by creating its own themed housing project.

institutions.

freedom of expression dorm. It's always been
a place for people like on the outskirts of
the Willow community. Because there's the
stereotypical Willow student. And then there's
just a lot of separation between that and the
typical Stevens student.

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 2

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