Resident housing gets a face-lift

Posted by admin on Sep 20, 2006 in News | 0 comments

Trinity Western University’s resident housing is getting a makeover this year.

Douglas Hall, traditionally an all-male-on-campus residence, is now home to a dorm of undergrad women, most of them majoring in education.

Bethany Tyler, the RA of the girls’ dorm, said she had some initial misgivings about a lack of diversity in the new living arrangements. She noted that Trinity’s rich liberal arts tradition is one of its strong points, and exposure to a variety of different fields should be celebrated.

Though education is the connection point for girls in her dorm she said their different focuses – science, English, music, etc. – ensure that diversity is maintained.

“It seems like we’re benefiting from the variety we have,” she remarked.

And as far as being the only women in Douglas, Tyler is definitely positive.

“We love it. Just the fact that we are the only girls living in Douglas, we take pride in it,” she said.

A dorm for the male business majors joins the education dorm as the newest “live-learn” communities at TWU.

Rod Ross, a professor with the School of Business, was one of the initiators of the project. Ross has conducted research on the successes of live-learn academic communities. Kelvin Gartly, Assistant Director of Community Life, was investigating the idea at the same time.

Both Ross and Gartly noted that the concurrence of their research was a motivating factor in the decision to introduce the live-learn project to Trinity.

“I was really struck by the quality of the product,” said Ross of his research. “One thing that anyone who’s in business is always looking at is how they can create greater value for their customers. This is what we would refer to as a value-add experience.”

Ross’s enthusiasm for the project is shared by many of TWU’s School of Business alumni who are providing funding for renovation in the new business dorm. Gartly hopes this project will be a way to further involve local alumni in the TWU community.

Gartly pointed out, however, that Douglas’s new dorms are not TWU’s first experience with live-learn communities. The International Dorm, involving both men and women, has been a vibrant means to connect students with similar interests and diverse backgrounds, he explained. The Laurentian Leadership Center is another example of the live-learn philosophy.

Gartly noted that Student Life intends to closely study the project this year and is eager to begin collecting feedback from students. If successful, TWU’s resident housing could potentially include more live-learn communities. These, Gartly observed, would not necessarily be major-related. They could also be constructed along broader types of interest, such as a social justice or wellness-based living which would include students of more than one major.