After a record number of students showed interest in the Office of Residential Life and Learning's (ResLife) Healthy Living Program this year, the number of those who will actually be participating has fallen to new lows. Of the 122 students who applied, a 47 percent increase from last year, only 26 ultimately chose to take part. Many students have named ResLife's decision to house healthy living upperclassmen in Lewis Hall next year rather than Carmichael Hall as largely responsible for this discrepancy.
ResLife's decision was not made without reason. The Healthy Living Program emphasizes not just a lifestyle choice but also a tightly-woven community of students that creates an environment that embodies this lifestyle. Because Carmichael is significantly larger than Lewis, with respective capacities of 241 and 188 people according to the ResLife Web site, healthy living students would compose a much larger percentage of the population in Lewis and thus the healthy living environment would be more securely established there. Moreover, Lewis' internal structure is conducive to healthy living in ways that Carmichael's design is not. Lewis' dorm rooms are organized into wings, allowing for a relative separation of healthy living and non-healthy living areas, and the many small lounges spread out between Lewis' dorm rooms could potentially facilitate the sociability and sense of community that is key to healthy living.
ResLife's mishandling of the relocation, however, has undermined the apparent logic behind it. Applicants' basic expectation when applying — that they would be living in Carmichael — was disregarded without any explanation or forewarning; students who requested healthy living were not adequately notified of the change prior to the deadline for requests, and ResLife has yet to release an official statement detailing its motives. This brusque treatment has exacerbated healthy living applicants' initial feeling of being slighted. Many feel that moving healthy living to Lewis is itself an affront to the program and its participants due to the dorm's mediocre standing among students — it is routinely among the last dorms to be filled during the regular housing lottery. Not giving students a forum to voice their complaints or providing an official response is a questionable route for ResLife to take.
There are certainly valid reasons for relocating the upperclassman Healthy Living Program to Lewis Hall. But an administration that has been making an effort to encourage students to engage in substance-free socializing should not be punishing students who choose this option by placing them in one of the least desirable dorms on campus. While administrators may say that they were looking to foster more of a community among healthy living students, there are ways this could have been done without detracting from the participants' quality of living. And, above all else, ResLife's failure to explain or even inform students about the change has prevented public discussion and significantly damaged the program, leading to a decrease in the number of participants. Hopefully, ResLife will be more open about such significant decisions in the future.
