Teenage friendships are complicated no matter the circumstances, but especially at boarding school. At Williston, some students feel there is a divide between boarders and day students. A variety of factors could be contributing to this, including dorm visiting hours, lack of social-mixing events, and the natural bonds that form when you live in a dorm with someone.
Williston has taken measures to attempt to bridge this gap, including allowing boarders to leave campus as long as they submit a request on REACH. REACH is an app that allows boarding students to submit requests to leave campus and notifies school staff of their whereabouts. This allows boarders to spend more time off-campus, often with their day-student friends. However, some students argue the divide is still prevalent, and additional changes can be made to fix it.
Mia Shaw, a sophomore boarder living in Mem East from Hollywood, California, says that limited dorm visiting hours are a root cause of the divide. On Green Fridays, Green Saturdays, and Blue Saturdays, visiting hours in most dorms are from 7:45-10:45pm. On Sundays, visiting hours are from 2-4pm.
“Day students can only come over to our dorms on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and only sometimes Fridays. All of that really separates everyone,” Mia said.
Gabe Follone, a junior boarder in John Hazen White from Croton-on-Hudson, New York, agrees that dorm visiting hours are a contributing factor.
“I think that it’s hard for day students to visit boarders in the dorms especially because day students can only come on weekends and weekends are the times when they are usually at home and far away from campus,” he said.
Some students also feel the divide is an inevitable result of boarders living together. Maggie Fay, a senior day student proctor from Easthampton, Massachusetts, says there are reasons that, in her opinion, boarding students tend to band together.
“I think the divide mostly stems from the fact that boarders are always on campus and live with one another, giving them that time to bond, while day students all go home at night and don’t have that same bond with the boarding students,” she said.
Students see this divide manifests itself in a multitude of ways. Catharine Ballard, a senior day student proctor from Belchertown, Massachusetts, says it manifests in social circles.
“The divide is mostly within friend groups because a lot of the boarders tend to be friends with other boarders and day students tend to be friends with other day students as they have more in common,” she said. “There are many exceptions and we do see some friend groups that have a mix of both day and boarding students.”
Students have had a wide range of ideas on how to bridge this gap, but the most common was extending dorm visitation hours.
“[The gap can be bridged] by having more times when day students can go into dorms because it’s a hassle for day students to get driven,” said Gabe. “Also, maybe mixing the boarders and day students when its convenient for the day students because it’s always convenient for the boarders.”
Caroline Channell, the Assistant Dean of Students for Community Life and fellow Williston student herself, agrees that the commute to school affects day student involvement in campus activities.
“The experience and involvement of day students on campus is up to them, but it also depends on whether a student can drive and if not, the flexibility of their parents,” she said. “We find day students become more active on campus when they are older and can drive.”
Regarding dorm visitation policies, Dean of Students David Koritkoski says that although students’ concerns about them are valid, those policies are in place for a reason.
“I totally understand the frustration of day students on this, however, if you think about the fact that the dorms are the boarding students’ homes, I don’t know many day student parents who would allow them to have friends over at random times during the day without permission or supervision; it’s the same thing in the dorms,” he said.
The school’s past experiences are another factor impacting the dorm visitation policies.
“There was a time 15 years ago when day students could enter and exit dorms however they pleased and it was very frustrating for many boarding students,” Mr. Koritkoski said. “For example, a boarder might come by in their free period and their roommate let a day student into the room to sleep and they didn’t know, or is playing video games while they’re trying to study. When we made that change it was very well received by boarding students.”
Mr. Koritkoski also says that Williston does its best to involve day students in activities on campus but has an obligation to care for its boarding students.
“Whenever possible we are trying to be inclusive of day students,” he said. “We also have a responsibility to supervise and program for our boarding students.”
