<b>CMU allows men, women to share rooms</b>
<b>University joins about 30 others in nation to try gender-neutral housing plan</b>
Tuesday, February 27, 2007By Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 <b>Online poll</b> [Do you agree with this plan?](http://postgazette.com/localnews/)
 Students at Carnegie Mellon University may not think twice about housing that is coed by building, by floor or even by wing.But this fall, the school with 10,000 students will take gender mixing to a whole new level by allowing opposite sex students to share a room.
The pilot program will involve one building with 25 apartments, officials confirmed yesterday. It will put Carnegie Mellon among roughly 30 schools nationally, public and private, that have instituted some form of gender neutral housing.
The school has weighed the idea for several years, said Tim Michael, assistant vice president for campus services. After students submitted a formal proposal last fall, administrators benchmarked what other schools do and deemed it feasible to implement a program that they expect will attract a limited number of students.
Those participants, who must be at least sophomores to be eligible, can sign up when room pairings are developed this spring, he said.
Carnegie Mellon long has offered rooming based on various criteria from Greek membership to academic interest. Mr. Michael said he viewed opposite sex rooming as one more example those options.
“Do I think it’s the wave of the future? Hard to tell. That’s why we want to do a pilot to find out what our students want,” he said. “I think it will fill a niche. But I don’t think it will be huge.”
Schools offering coed rooming to unmarried students say the idea is not about promoting sex. Rather, they say, it’s to enable students to pick roommate situations that best suit them.
Often, it’s friends with no romantic interest, said Mr. Michael. Or, it could be gay, lesbian or bisexual students who do not want to be forced to share a room with a same-sex student.
The number of schools offering such arrangements, while small, has grown over the past five years. About 30, either in their own publications or through professional association contacts, have indicated they do so, said Mr. Michael, citing research done by Carnegie Mellon.
That research points to such large public schools as the University of California at Riverside and the University of Minnesota.
It also points to private schools such as Wesleyan University, Oberlin College and, in Pennsylvania, Swarthmore and Haverford colleges.
At Carnegie Mellon, the pilot will be conducted at Shady Oak Apartments, a five-story building adjacent to campus where two or three students share efficiencies, one-, two- or three-bedroom apartments, each with a private bath.
Previously, only students of the same gender were allowed to share any of the units. The new policy “removes that limitation,” Mr. Michael said.
“The students decide how they want to live together,” he said. “We don’t ask the students to tell us what bedroom.”
The proposal arose from student government after groups including the campus dormitory council were consulted, Mr. Michael said.
Karl Sjogren, student body president who was involved in vetting the proposal, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The idea has drawn opinions for and against on campus.
Shweta Kumar, 20, a sophomore psychology major from Washington, D.C., has no problem with it.
“I think it prepares people for life after college in that once you sort of branch out and get your own apartment, your roommates are not always going to be the same sex as you,” she said. “I think it’s a great idea.”
Christopher Mancini, 21, a junior chemistry major from Erie, has no problem with the pilot but doubts that having male and female students living in the same campus room will work.
“I don’t think a lot of students would be mature enough to deal with that,” he said.
[RIGHT](Bill Schackner can be reached at bschackner@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1977. ) [/RIGHT]
azn’s FTW!
