Author: Riley Kimball
At the beginning of this semester, Residence Education and Housing Services (REHS) debuted on-campus themed housing, filling four quads on two floors of Norris Orange and a house off campus. These first themed living spaces include Spirituality and Social Justice, Visual and Performing Arts, Languages (French, Spanish, and German) and Sustainability. The program currently involves 29 students, four language TAs and a budget of $5,000.
“The budget is used for themed related programming. This could be anything from renting a foreign film, to going to a meditation retreat, to bringing in a guest lecturer,” REHS Community Director Chad Myers said. Part of the $5,000 was recently spent on supplies for building a garden in the backyard of the Sustainability House.
But even with this additional funding, the budget is stretched tight across four themes. Three of the themes reside in Norris, though, so REHS supplements themed programming with the funds appropriated to Norris as a residence hall.
The themed housing initiative took flight last spring to little fanfare with the opening of the Green House, an off-campus property used by seven students. “[The students] are meant to be a model for how students can live more sustainably,” Chang said. The house helped strengthen the themed housing initiative and prompted the administration to grant the larger $5,000 budget.
Student involvement may require more than just the occasional programming though. “Reslife needs to create incentives for students to be more proactive. They need to encourage us to do better in living according to our theme,” said David Alpert (junior), who lives in the Sustainability House.
Myers believes that a balance between enthusiasm and temperament actually helps a theme thrive. “For themed housing to be successful, I think you need both in the house, because if you have the people who are so gung ho, so happy to be in that house, the likelihood that they’re going to get in there and do a lot of great things and maybe burnout is probably really high. So to try to find that happy mix is what we’re going for. I’m still trying to figure out how to market to those students who don’t really want to hear about themed housing.”
But growth is the plan, and REHS has big plans for the future of themed housing. “Our goal for next year would be to have all of Norris completely filled with themed housing,” Myers said. In the longer term, REHS is considering shifting the focus of Berkus House. As an all-women dorm, it is already regarded by them as “pseudo-themed housing.”
“In the future, Berkus is definitely going to have a shift in culture to the themed housing aspect,” Myers said. Chang and Myers have discussed turning it into a “women of science” themed home. They are also interested in incorporating Pauley into themed housing, but this will depend on whether or not that space is still needed for first-years in coming academic years. Other ideas include a world affairs house, to be associated with the DWA department.
Besides its own plans, REHS wants the majority of growth in themed housing to come from students. Open applications will be available around the first week of November for students to submit their own plans for housing themes, and applications to live in these themes will begin at the end of January. “It has to be somehow related to academics, so in the application it has to say how that theme will overall help the Occidental community,” said Myers.
“I think the goal of [themed housing] is to take what they’re learning in the classroom and applying it in a real life setting,” said Myers. “It’s that holistic development of the student, giving them a classroom outside of the classroom.”
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