Outside Salman Ibrahim’s room,
there is a paper listing his office hours. This is not unusual to see for
professors and teaching assistants, but Ibrahim is a resident adviser on the
first floor of Goldsworthy Hall.
In previous years, Ibrahim would
have had another RA on the floor to cover some of the responsibilities of the
job. This year, with WSU admitting a record 4,220 new freshmen, there are barely
enough rooms to accommodate both RAs and all the freshmen required to live in
the residence halls.
The freshman live-in rule is
codified in the Washington Administrative Code, requiring all first-year
students less than 20 years old to live in the residence halls on campus.
Exceptions can be made for students who meet one of the following four
criteria: they have attended an institution of higher learning before, they can
live with an immediate family member, they have an excuse from a psychologist
or they can demonstrate financial hardship. These criteria do not bar students
from choosing to live in the residence halls.
Pullman resident Laura Guido
chose to spend her freshman year in Honors Hall, despite having her family in
town. Guido said she wanted to get the separation that comes with living in the
residence halls, which allowed her to get the college experience.
“When you actually live in
Pullman, you rarely go on campus, so it’s like a new experience,” said Guido.
The common complaint against the
residence halls is the cost, which averages about $5,700 per semester. Forcing
the overwhelming majority of college students or their families to pay these
costs to comply with the law could be seen as excessive. The residence halls do
have one thing that many former residents point to as a major perk: community.
Former student Nicole Tuhy said
it’s easier to meet people and be informed about campus events when she lived
in the residence halls.
Another former student, Kirstin
King, said the sense of community in the residence halls helps to combat
loneliness that many students would experience if they started in the
apartments.
“You’re out there in the middle
of nowhere, and it’s easier to make friends in the dorms,” said King.
Guido said she lived with her
best friend in freshman year.
“We knew that we liked each
other, but we also wanted to meet new people,” said Guido.
Ibrahim said community is the
biggest thing.
“That’s why they’re called
residence halls instead of dorms,” said Ibrahim. “Dorms have a connotation of
being places where you sleep and eat. Residence halls are really about the
community.”
Ibrahim said a lot of students’
most memorable part of college is the year they spend in the residence halls.
“It seems tedious at first, but
everyone comes to miss the experiences,” said Ibrahim
Many students have stories that
reflect upon the community aspect of their year in the dorms. A lot of these
stories couldn’t happen in a different setting, making the residence halls
unique.
“In the very beginning of the
school year, a friend and I went to another building to watch a baseball game,
because there was no lounge in our building,” said King. “By the end of the
game, the room we were in was packed with people we didn’t even know. That would
never happen in apartment land.”
“One night, we took office chairs
and raced them down the ramps,” said Tuhy. Tuhy said the RAs made it memorable
when they caught Tuhy and her friends in the elevator preparing for another
race.
Despite the memories and
experiences, opinions on the freshman live-in rule as a requirement are mixed.
Tuhy said the residence hall
experience is not necessarily for everyone, and they are more expensive than
other living options.
“Students shouldn’t be required
to live in the residence halls,” said Tuhy. “It should be a personal choice.”
Ibrahim said people tend to miss
seeing their friends on a day-to-day basis when they move out of the residence
halls.
“A residence hall feels more
homey than an apartment,” said Ibrahim.
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