Housing Equality at Yale!

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Richard Tao <richard.tao@yale.edu>
Date: Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 12:14 PM
Subject: FW: Statement on housing
To: ycc08@panlists.yale.edu
—–Original Message—–
From: Miller, Mary [mailto: mary.miller@yale.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 12:14 PM
To: Divya Subrahmanyam; Richard Tao
Subject: Statement on housing

Dear Divya and Rich,
I have promised that you would receive this statement as soon as it was ready to go.  I am just informing the Masters, Deans, and other parties right now.
Yours, DMM

March 2, 2009

To:  Yale College Dean’s Office; The Council of Masters
From:  Mary Miller, Dean of Yale College; Judith Krauss, Chair, Council of Masters

Dean Mary Miller has announced today the appointment of a Yale College task force to continue to explore mixed-gender housing options in Yale College. Associate Deans Marichal Gentry and John Meeske have agreed to form a task force with this charge.

In January 2008, then-Dean Peter Salovey appointed an Ad Hoc Committee to consider gender-neutral housing option for Yale College following a proposal by the LGBTQ Coop and a resolution of endorsement by the Yale College Council during the fall of 2007.   Committee members included Associate Dean John Meeske (Chair), Judith Krauss (Chair, Council of Masters & Master, Silliman College), Steven Smith (Master, Branford College), Kevin Hicks (Dean, Berkeley College), Marichal Gentry (Dean of Student Affairs), Maria Trumpler (Director of the Office for LGBTQ Affairs).  After a year of information gathering from sister institutions, masters, and deans, as well as various student groups on campus and consideration of the potential impact of such policies on Yale’s residential college housing system the Committee recommended that Yale adopt a mixed-gender housing option for juniors and seniors. The Council of Masters reviewed the Committee’s recommendations in February 2009 and endorsed them, clearing the way for further consideration by other stakeholder groups.  The recommendations were then taken under consideration by the Officers of the University, who have requested of Dean Miller that further action be tabled until additional data can be gathered on how the policies recently introduced at peer institutions are working. The Ad Hoc Committee documented the policies at other schools, but it did not evaluate their successes and shortcomings in practice.  The
Officers  would like to know more about this before proceeding.

Given the limited scope of housing options within any individual residential college, Yale faces unique challenges in accommodating changes to housing. Whereas other institutions have piloted limited dormitory floors or entryways for gender neutral housing, any change to Yale’s housing effectively necessitates implementation throughout the system, with attention to class year.  Without more detailed knowledge of how mixed gender housing has worked on a small scale elsewhere, the Officers are concerned that a system-wide change at Yale would be premature. As a result, mixed-gender housing options will not be made available for on-campus room draws for the 2009-10 academic year.