Taking it from RLO
by Ben Cooper

     In addition to waking Ben Carter up every morning at 7 A.M. with the sounds of 
construction, the new dorm building has stirred unrest among some students trying to live 
off-campus.  More beds means more people needed to fill them, and more students being 
denied permission to live off-campus.  Currently there are only 11 seniors on the waitlist 
whose fate is uncertain, but who will most likely have to live on-campus next year.  Is 
this unfair?
     A section of the College statement of purpose resolves to "maintain itself as a 
residential community of scholars," implying local living in dorms.  Certainly the 
language does not necessarily preclude off-campus housing: obviously those students off-
campus are both residential and are within our community.  But the sense has always 
been Davidson must remain tight-knit.  The President’s Priorities Planning Group two 
years ago reaffirmed this strategy and the final decision to build the new dorm building 
was, as Dean Holmes has commented, "a conscious choice to increase the percentage of 
students living on campus."  Is this a freedom denied?
     Yes and no.  A college should hope that its students would be able to still 
maintain community despite diaspora, that those off-campus will nevertheless participate 
in activities on college grounds.  If we as a community believe in these responsibilities 
and our right to choose where to live, then we should voice our opinions and effect 
change.  We had plenty of opportunities.  The Trustees and the President’s committee 
were not the only dialogues.  An RLO Facilities Working Group which was composed of 
SGA members and other students interested in the effects of a new hall met weekly.  An 
RLO Lottery Working Group discussed the impact of the new hall.  Dean Holmes 
attended SGA meetings to receive student input.  If this is a problem now, part of the 
responsibility lies with us since there were many avenues to debate.
     But those committees have past.  The dorm is being built and it will be filled.  To 
a certain extent, the College is still telling the students that we cannot create community 
by ourselves.  Living off-campus isolates and alienates, just as cable television; certainly 
building an upper-class dormitory next to Richardson and Belk does the same.      
     Presumably for most students, the issue seems a relatively small one.  Only a small 
percentage will be "forced" to live on campus.  Yet the idea behind that constraint speaks 
to the integrity and purpose of this College.  Are we a community because we want to be, 
or because we are forced to be?  It would seem we are a little of both.