The most important part of boarding life at Williston isn’t which dorm you live in, it is who you live there with.
Dorm camaraderie is a critical part of living in the dorm. Spending most waking moments with your peers, it is easy to struggle with bonding and get frustrated with those around you and ultimately lose sight of the important parts of boarding.
Over the last few years, Williston’s Health and Wellness office has offered helpful tips on how to get acquainted with your roommate and living situation, even if you are a returning student.
An important part of living together is tolerance and compromise, and you get these traits by having a strong dorm community. Proctors play a large role in building this community.
Casey Muscato ’26, a proctor in the John Wright boys’ dorm, believes that the proctors facilitate the feelings of community.
“My role as a proctor in John Wright to help build dorm spirit and camaraderie is to encourage people in the dorm to go to dorm activities such as Willympics,” Casey, a junior from Pensacola FL, said. “We ended up getting third place even with the small amount of people we had.”
Willympics is a campus-wide competition between the dorms, with day students competing as their own “army.” This activity is important for dorm spirit because each dorm creates their own flag and competes together to earn points. Emily McFadden Vincent House, known as EMV, is currently in the lead.
Michael Saliba ’25, a proctor in Mem West, says it can sometimes be difficult to get people to participate in these school-wide events.
“I think sometimes a lot of guys don’t want to do things or might be scared of doing things,” Saliba told The Willistonian. “My role is just to let people know that, ‘hey, this is like a brotherly thing.’ We have to do it, but we get to do it together.
Jason Leigh, the dorm head of Mem West, agrees about the importance of camaraderie in the dorm.
“I think the better camaraderie in the dorm, the more respect kids will have for each other,” Leigh said. “If you get to know someone outside of the classroom or afternoon program, you gain more respect for them as a whole.”
Leigh also believes, though, that the dorm actually has to want to build this bond for it to be developed.
“I can get the ball rolling but it is up to the kids in the dorm to keep it going.” Leigh said. “If the dorm as a whole doesn’t buy in, nothing I do will matter.”
Kenzo Endo, a junior proctor in John Hazen White, believes that it is important to learn to live together.
“When you boil it down, you all share one connected space,” Kenzo said. “It’s alright to feel like you want to be alone at times, but you want to make sure that you take certain opportunities to socialize and make friends with those that you’ll be seeing everyday.”
