Back to the Future

 

In my paper today, the new president of Catholic University, John Garvey, makes some news by saying the school will go back to single-sex dorms, and explains why:

I know it’s countercultural. More than 90% of college housing is now co-ed. But Christopher Kaczor at Loyola Marymount points to a surprising number of studies showing that students in co-ed dorms (41.5%) report weekly binge drinking more than twice as often as students in single-sex housing (17.6%). Similarly, students in co-ed housing are more likely (55.7%) than students in single-sex dorms (36.8%) to have had a sexual partner in the last year—and more than twice as likely to have had three or more.

The point about sex is no surprise. The point about drinking is. I would have thought that young women would have a civilizing influence on young men. Yet the causal arrow seems to run the other way. Young women are trying to keep up—and young men are encouraging them (maybe because it facilitates hooking up).

Next year all freshmen at The Catholic University of America will be assigned to single-sex residence halls. The year after, we will extend the change to the sophomore halls. It will take a few years to complete the transformation.

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  1. Profile Photo Member
    @Misthiocracy

    At my school, the dorms were “pseudo-coed”. The first floor was men-only. The second floor was women-only. The third floor was men-only. The fourth floor was women-only. Etc, etc, etc…

    Here’s where it gets funny: My dorm used to be completely women-only, and the neighbouring dorm used to be men-only.

    When they made the switch to pseudo-coed, they neglected to renovate the bathrooms.

    So, in my dorm, we men had luxurious bathrooms with lots of stalls and no urinals.

    In the other dorm, the women’s floors had bathrooms with one stall and five urinals.

    And we laughed, and we laughed, and we laughed …

    • #1
  2. Profile Photo Podcaster
    @EJHill
    John Garvey:

    The point about drinking is. I would have thought that young women would have a civilizing influence on young men.

    I don’t think women are that civilizing anymore. With the merger of digital photography and instant communication more and more young women are engaging in acts similar to certain US Congressmen. (I was going to write “pulling a Weiner” but that statement looked worse than I meant it.)

    And more and more of the young women I meet look like they have more tattoos than your average WWII Marine.

    • #2
  3. Profile Photo Inactive
    @katievs

    I find it funny, in a sad sort of way, that the president of a Catholic University apparently feels the need to justify himself for such a no-brainer policy decision.

    • #3
  4. Profile Photo Member
    @PaulARahe

    As far as I know, Hillsdale never departed from the practice of having single-sex dorms and single-sex dorms only — and my sense is that we have avoided a lot of trouble that way. Among other things, the practice sends a message to prospective students: “If what you want out of college is a country club combined with a brothel, don’t come here.” Catholic U. could no doubt profit from sending the same message.

    What’s the story with the dorms at Notre Dame?

    • #4
  5. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Cutlass

    Wow. What should be “surprising” is that a college president needs any number of studies to reach this conclusion.

    “The point about sex is no surprise. The point about drinking is.”

    Really? He’s shocked (shocked!) that alcohol consumption and impulsive sexual encounters go together? Was he ever an 18 year old male? Has he heard of beer goggles? And why would anyone think women who have casual sex with multiple partners would have a “civilizing effect?”

    Oh, and why does he seem more concerned with the binge drinking then casual sex?

    My oh my. So many questions…maybe we should commission a study of college presidents.

    • #5
  6. Profile Photo Member
    @BillMcGurn

    Notre Dame is still single-sex dorms too.

    • #6
  7. Profile Photo Member
    @Midge

    Don’t mean this as an argument against same-sex dorms, just an example of how varied human experience can be:

    Having resided in both same-sex and mixed-sex dorms, I remember feeling safer in the mixed-sex dorm.

    Admittedly, I was a stubborn young cuss, and so unlikely to be tempted by my male floormates with booze or sex. So what ended up happening to me in a mixed-sex dorm is that I had “bruvvers” — guys who’d stick up for me if another guy was bugging me. I appreciated that.

    In the all-girl’s dorm, on the other hand, there was no one besides me to take an interest in my welfare — the girls there were pretty much indifferent to each other. (I expect this isn’t true of all all-female dorms, but it was definitely true in the one I was in.)

    That said, I might be letting one incident color my impressions too strongly: The one case of on-campus indecent assault I had to file with the police happened to me in the all-female dorm.

    • #7
  8. Profile Photo Member
    @

    I attended an undergraduate institution that had completely coed dorms. My experience was anecdotal (the statistics seem to indicate otherwise) but I found living on the same floor as women civilizing for the men. There are many shenanigans men of that age engage in that you cannot (or will not) if women are present. We all had to keep our rooms a bit cleaner, ourselves a bit nicer, and our activities a bit less obnoxious. I will concede, however, the reverse effect may be present for the ladies in coed dorms.

    I may be out on a limb but the statistics may also arise due to self-selection. High schoolers that decide to live in coed dorms may be more open (or enthusiastic) about binge drinking and casual sex.

    • #8
  9. Profile Photo Member
    @PaulARahe
    Bill McGurn: Notre Dame is still single-sex dorms too. · Jun 13 at 2:32pm

    Good for them.

    • #9
  10. Profile Photo Inactive
    @StickerShock
    Paul DeRocco: Are you sure the causality doesn’t flow the other way? That students who like binge drinking are more likely to choose colleges that are generally permissive, and therefore have coed dorms? Taking a particular mixed population of students who drink a lot and segregating them may have no effect on their sobriety. · Jun 14 at 12:53am

    It’s actually hard to find colleges that don’t have co-ed dorms. The new trend is to have coe-ed suites at some schools, by the way

    It’s hard for kids to really know how wild the binge drinking scene is on a given campus. You hear about the heavy party reputations of schools like U Mass and Williams, but there are thousands of colleges in the US. They do a masterful job of putting on a phoney, happy face to fool parents & students. Factor in the crazy costs of college and you will find families making choices based on $$, rather than fit and environment.

    Some kids have spines of steel and won’t be drawn into the depravity. Others let lonliness and the need to fit in drag them down into the binge world.

    • #10
  11. Profile Photo Member
    @BillMcGurn

    Plainly Mr. Garvey has hit a chord. I just checked the WSJ, and his article is still listed as the single most read piece in the newspaper yesterday. In today’s age, I believe it is a strong move, and will help separate Mr. Garvey from the rest of the pack, and perhaps give Catholic U a stronger identity. (I say this also conceding that I hadn’t known Catholic had mixed dorms before!)

    • #11
  12. Profile Photo Member
    @EvanMeyer
    Misthiocracy:

    When they made the switch to pseudo-coed, they neglected to renovate the bathrooms.

    So, in my dorm, we men had luxurious bathrooms with lots of stalls and no urinals.

    In the other dorm, the women’s floors had bathrooms with one stall and five urinals.

    And we laughed, and we laughed, and we laughed … · Jun 13 at 1:29pm

    Edited on Jun 13 at 01:32 pm

    We had the same situation at my alma mater. In my freshman dorm (originally male-only) the women put lovely silk flower arrangements in the urinals. Those urinals, seeing less use, lasted longer, while they wouldn’t replace more than the code-listed minimum of urinals in the mens’ bathrooms. This led to the particular irony that the women enjoyed twice as many decorative urinals than we had functional ones.

    • #12
  13. Profile Photo Member
    @EvanMeyer

    Regarding the change at Catholic U, I think it’s really exciting to see a case not just of standing athwart history shouting “stop!”, but of actually turning back the clock on supposedly inexorable societal change. It’s far too easy to let the scope of our ambitions be narrowed down to societal damage control, and I’m guilty of letting myself slip into the mainstream habit of thinking and talking about societal change as one-directional. It’s good to be reminded that it’s not, or at least not universally so.

    • #13
  14. Profile Photo Member
    @PaulDeRocco

    Are you sure the causality doesn’t flow the other way? That students who like binge drinking are more likely to choose colleges that are generally permissive, and therefore have coed dorms? Taking a particular mixed population of students who drink a lot and segregating them may have no effect on their sobriety.

    • #14
  15. Profile Photo Member
    @WesternChauvinist
    Paul A. Rahe

    Bill McGurn: Notre Dame is still single-sex dorms too. · Jun 13 at 2:32pm

    Good for them. · Jun 13 at 5:31pm

    Given the confused moral leadership at Notre Dame (Obama commencement invitation and recent board kerfuffle), I’m not sure single-sex dorms are all that helpful.

    • #15
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