Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 58

 43  CONTINUED

PRACTICE FOR LIFE

going deep (forging strong friendships
with an inner circle of close friends) is
necessarily an inferior strategy to going
broad (creating wider-ranging and
usually larger friendship networks that
often cut across social boundaries like
race, social class, etc.). Both strategies
accrue real dividends with respect to
what students get out of their college
experiences.
The going deep students spoke
of being academically supported and
inspired by their close friends. The latenight dorm room conversations about
philosophy or politics still occur on
college campuses (despite what some
higher education researchers may
say about college students today), and
students talked about them with real
passion in their interviews.
The going broad students, on the
other hand, spoke of an openness
to new friendships and new social
situations that was not as apparent
among the going deep students. They
were in many ways more socially
daring - they were much more likely
to strike up a conversation with a
stranger - and their willingness to do
so created many opportunities to learn
from others who had very different life
experiences than their own.
The two approaches of going deep
and going broad are not inherently at
odds with one another. They are not
mutually exclusive. Many of the going
broad students had a close-knit group
of friends (though it tended to be a
more fluid group of close friends than
it was for the going deep students),
and many of the going deep students
reported new friends every year
(although with less frequency than for
the going broad students). The going
deep approach was far and away the
more prevalent approach to friends
that we observed, especially among
students after the first year. Again, it
wasn't surprising to find that the going
broad approach was less common. The
going broad students typically did so
by dint of very strong, self-confident,
58

TALKING STICK

and charismatic personalities. They
were outliers. But, and this is key,
exceptional charisma is not a necessary
prerequisite for extending oneself
beyond a tight, somewhat insular
group of friends.
The cross-racial and cross-ethnic
interactions and friendships of many
first-year students - most of whom
would go on to form the going deep
friendship groups - in their diverse
residence halls is testimony to that.
The trick for colleges is to try to
find ways in the sophomore, junior,
and senior years to replicate, even if
partially, the kinds of opportunities for
diverse interactions that occur with far
greater frequency in the first year. The
colleges in our study have succeeded,
to varying degrees, in creating diverse
student bodies. That demographic
diversity does not, however, readily
equate to interactional or friendship
diversity. Achieving those are the real
challenge.
Talking Stick: From what you've
learned about the decisions students
make, what are some concrete steps
that you think housing departments
can take so that the residence hall
experience helps students through
this decision-making process?
We believe housing departments
should continue some of the practices
that we found to be successful in
our book: assigning students diverse
roommates and floormates. We are
hesitant to endorse a relatively new
practice at some of our colleges
where first-year students can request
a particular roommate (in the age of
social media, incoming students are
contacting one another more and more
before ever setting foot on campus).
The stories we heard from the
serendipitously wonderful roommate
pairings made by housing departments
were far too compelling and numerous
for us to advocate on behalf of this

practice.
Providing social events, orientation
trips, and floor and dorm activities
as ways to provide students with
additional opportunities to make
diverse connections is also important
and effective, especially among firstyear students.
A college's ability to socially
engineer student interactions
diminishes after the first year. On
the one hand, that's exactly how it
should be if the purpose of college is
to further the intellectual, social, and
personal growth of students. We can't
do so by forcing choices upon them.
On the other hand, left to their own
devices, student friendship groups tend
towards social closure, and the kinds of
diverse interactions that took place in
the first year decline. Students not only
recognize this happening, but many
see it as unfortunate.
Again, the challenge is figuring
out what we can do after the first year
to facilitate the kinds of behaviors
and outcomes that our institutions
value and, more importantly, that our
students value. In our book, we suggest
that more can be done in classrooms to
promote cross-cultural understanding,
awareness, and interaction. Our book
did not explore options regarding
residential life, although we do wonder
if a house system (like Harvard's)
which assigns students to live in the
same house or residence for multiple
years and then allows them to pick
roommates within the house might
be more successful in facilitating the
kinds of sustained interactions across
boundaries of race, ethnicity, religion,
sexual orientation, etc. that can lead to
real friendships. 

James A. Baumann is the editor of Talking
Stick.
 james@acuho-i.org



Talking Stick - January/February 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Talking Stick - January/February 2017

Talking Stick - January/February 2017
Contents
Vision
Just In
Calendar
Your ACUHO-I
Transitions
Res Life
Facilities
Special Focus
Conversations
First Takes
Around Student Affairs
New Members
Snapshot
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Intro
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - BB1
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - BB2
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Talking Stick - January/February 2017
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Cover2
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 1
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 2
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 3
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Contents
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 5
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 6
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 7
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Vision
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 9
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Just In
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 11
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 12
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 13
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 14
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 15
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 16
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 17
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Calendar
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 19
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Your ACUHO-I
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 21
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Transitions
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 23
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Res Life
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 25
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 26
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 27
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Facilities
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 29
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 30
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 31
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Special Focus
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 33
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 34
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 35
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 36
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 37
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 38
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 39
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 40
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 41
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 42
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 43
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 44
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 45
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 46
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 47
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 48
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 49
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 50
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 51
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Conversations
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 53
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 54
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 55
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - First Takes
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Around Student Affairs
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - 58
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - New Members
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Snapshot
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Cover3
Talking Stick - January/February 2017 - Cover4
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