Making Matches

An interview with housing director David Brown

continued …

In late July students receive a packet that includes their roommate’s name and contact information. We encourage them to meet or at least talk to each other. They should negotiate on appliances — otherwise they’ll run out of electrical plugs in the room.

They also learn which dorm and room they have. They can go online and learn about that room. We of course get calls immediately. Some are ugly — "How can you put my son or daughter with this person?" We tell them that we encourage learning about others, that this is the best experience a young person will have in living with people who are different. Other parents believe that one residence hall is the best one, and they’re angry and frustrated. You can hear the student in the background pleading, "Mom, it’s no big deal."

• • •

Roommate success is very much a function of maturity and the willingness to compromise, the ability to negotiate. If you have those abilities, you can come from widely diverse backgrounds and do well together. The students who aren’t willing to budge on the most minor items won’t do well.

We recommend that best friends don’t room together. The expectations are too high.

Successful roommates are people who can live together, tolerate each other, but socialize outside that relationship. That said, there are plenty of cases where the two end up being great friends.

Two-thirds of our students will match up well. That last third we have to deliberate, look at their second preferences. The late applications are much more difficult to match well. We have to prioritize then, and smoking becomes the most important point.

After a long time coming, we have a smoking prohibition in all residence halls now. But you can still smell smoke on someone’s clothes, or be allergic to smoke.

• • •

We had a triple with two incoming athletes on different teams and one non-athlete. The first athlete wanted only teammates living in the room. The second athlete wasn’t sure it would work, but decided to try the arrangement. The non-athlete had a good experience. The first athlete didn’t make it through the year.

It’s all about willingness to open your mind.

• • •

The hot buttons are guests, from friends visiting in the room to overnight guests dancing in the sheets. Then there’s lifestyle — does the roommate drink every day? Make a lot of noise? Use your personal belongings or eat your food? Students come in assuming what these norms of behavior are, but they never talk about them.

We had a student who took a roommate’s Walkman to another city, then left it in a friend’s car for a few days. The student had little sense that this was wrong. The roommate was livid.

• • •

RAs are crucial.

When students come to us with roommate problems, very often we send them back to their RA to have a conversation. RAs usually try to mediate first. We have roommate contracts in which the students agree to such things as the use of each other’s belongings, bedtimes, lights, and noise levels.

Developmentally, students have little experience in negotiating anything. More and more students come to college without ever having had to share. Students with siblings have more of those skills.

We tell students that they can request a roommate change two weeks after they arrive – once the numbers settle down, and we see who’s arrived. But we know that students need the chance to get to know each other. Very often these things will work out.

• • •

Once we had a male and a female student who professed their love for each other. They said they should be roommates because they spent so much time together anyway. We denied their request.

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