The dorm 194 is known throughout Williston as being one of the nicest dorms on the campus.  It would be the majority of the boarders’ first choice in housing.  The dorm has always been a boys’ dorm since it opened in 2009, but now the dorm will house freshmen and sophomore girls for the 2016-2017 year.

The dorm 194 becoming a girl’s dorm was a surprise to many of the students.  According to the Dean of Students Ms. Kathryn Noble, “It had always been the school’s plan to change 194 to a girls dorm.”  This plan was made since they first opened 194.  The school had always planned to switch the dorm to girls after the boys lived there for a certain amount of years.

In past years, Williston has switched a lot of the dorms, such as making Conant a boy’s dorm in 2012, after it had been a girl’s dorm.  Memorial West used to be the boys side of the dorm while Memorial East was the girls’ side of the dorm before the class of 2016 was at Williston.  Since then, Memorial Hall houses all girls and is the largest girls’ dorm on campus.  Though many of the dorms on campus have changed, the switch in 194 seems to bring out a great amount of mixed emotions.

Senior Nick Garofano, who lived in 194 his freshman year, explained how he has mixed feelings about the 194 becoming a girls dorm because the boys made a lot of great memories there.  One of his favorite memories was “during finals week on the last two days of the school year my friends and I stayed up all night for those last two days trying to study for our tests.”

There are some Williston alumni who have mixed emotions about the dorm change.  There have been Tweets made to the Williston Twitter account from male alumni students about how they think changing 194 to a girl’s dorm is a bad idea.  Jay Brennan, who graduated Williston in 2015, tweeted “Cannot believe 194 is gonna be a girls dorm… @WillistonNS figure it out guys.”

While there has been some negative feedback about the change, some faculty and students are happy with the decision.

Senior Morgan Fisher explains, “I liked the tradition of 194 being a boys dorm, but I think it’s good to let the girls experience what it is like to live in the nicest dorm on campus.”

Also dorm parent, Mrs. Klumpp states how she is going to miss all the boys who have lived in the dorm, but she is looking forward to “seeing how our dorm curriculum works with the girls.”

There is no telling on how long 194 will remain a girl’s dorm.  Williston’s goal in the upcoming years is to get everyone living in a dorm closer to the campus.  This means that eventually none of the students will live in the house dorms.  As the school changes in size, students will not have to live in the dorms located on main street, including Conant, Sawyer, French, and Claire.