Williston is opening its first all-gender dorm in the fall. Many Williston students have been anticipating this addition, as boarding schools across the Northeast have been taking part in this initiative geared toward equity and inclusion.
The new dorm will be located in Logan House, which is just behind EMV, Williston’s most recent addition to residential facilities.
Although “few boarding high schools” have implemented gender-inclusive housing so far, Slate reported, more and more schools are opting to implement this initiative.
Schools like “Phillips Exeter Academy, Choate Rosemary Hall, Phillips Academy – Andover, The Hotchkiss School, and Northfield Mount Hermon School have each opened, or are in the process of creating, dorm options that are inclusive of all genders,” the Bertram Group website states. “Across institutions, educators are sharing ideas and expertise with the goal of serving all students.”
Associate Dean of Students Dave Koritkoski said “Logan House is opening in response to the needs of the Williston community. All-gender housing recognizes, accommodates, and respects the complexities of gender identity and provides an opportunity for students to live in a dormitory that is not limited by the traditional gender binary housing assignments.”
According to Koritkoski, all students are eligible to live in Logan, not just members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
“Logan House is committed to inclusive and equitable practices to create a gender-affirming residence,” he said. “This community welcomes students regardless of their sex, gender identity, or gender expression. All-gender housing is a safe space for members of the LGBTQIA+ community as well as their allies.”
Koritkoski said faculty as well as students are part of a steering committee involved in the planning of the new dorm.
“We’re going to have students involved because we think a big part of this is going to be allowing the people who live there to build their own community and have an influence on how the dorm operates,” he explained.
According to Nikki Chambers, Williston’s Dean of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, the goal of the steering committee is to “create an environment in which students of all genders feel an authentic sense of belonging, that this is a dorm where students feel that they belong and they thrive not just in the space but Williston at large. This is just one important step in making sure that happens.”
In order to achieve this goal, “to ultimately foster a sense of belonging for all of our students who want to be a member of this dorm,” as Chambers put it, the school is training faculty in DEIB-related topics, a process she calls “lifelong.”
“We all have so much we need to learn but we are a community that’s always up for the task of doing better,” she said. “So that’s where we’re coming from with it. We’re going to be offering trainings not just to faculty members but throughout the year making sure that students, even students that don’t live in Logan, are going to have access to this training too.”
Chambers added that the schools wants “to make sure that this dorm is integrated into the community and that every student understands why this dorm is in existence, why it’s important, and how our students can show up and be allies for our students as well.”
Chambers explained that Williston is not the first school to offer this housing option.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel by any stretch of the imagination, so I think that’s really helpful that we’ve had other peer institutions that have done this and have a blueprint for us to use as a guide,” she said.
Chambers said the dorm opening is a move toward “creating an environment at Williston where students are affirmed in their gender whether they are in Scott Hall taking a science course, whether they’re in the StuBop grabbing a coffee, or whether they’re playing lacrosse on Sawyer Field.”
Chambers said the new Logan House all-gender dorm is an important step toward equity and belonging, but not the final one.