By Kirsten Nguyen

Williams Hall resident Grace Slimm said she would have trouble making friends if she wasn’t living in a coed dorm.

“Living here helps with getting along with each other,” she said. “I wouldn’t have any friends otherwise, unless they were in my classes.”

This year, the decision was made to turn Gooding and Williams Halls from same sex to co-ed dorms. This isn’t the first time the freshman halls have been co-ed- Gooding and Williams were previously co-ed dorms until 2011 when they were changed to same sex dorms.

The switch back has been a positive change on campus for some.

“I would say that a benefit of having co-ed dorms is the message it sends from the administration,” Gooding Hall Resident Assistant Shenandoah Lush said.

Lush said the change shows the administration trusts the students to live with the opposite sex and that they are mature enough to be housed in the same building.

Williams Hall resident Lyara Pratt said she enjoys being able to live in the same building as males because they always have food.

“The boys have more snacks than we do and they’re not disrespectful,” Pratt said.

Williams Hall resident Katelyn Watson thinks it’s easier for female residents to get along in Gooding, but having co-ed dorms helps reduce the amount of conflicts among females.

“They’re probably all cordial just because they live on same floor,” she said. “Our dorm still has multiple floors of girls, but in Gooding it might be easier to get along because they only have one floor of girls.”

Lush disagreed.

“A majority male dorm like Gooding often means there is higher risk of physical, tense and louder conflict,” she said.

Slimm said she couldn’t imagine the dorms not being co-ed because she is so used to it.

“If they weren’t I think it would be a lot different,” she said.

Even though some students only see benefits of the co-ed dorms, Lush said there are some downsides.

“The biggest problem I see with coed dorms is noise violations during quiet hours,” she said.

Lush said that residents of the dorm like to gather, causing noise levels to rise later in the night, which results in noise violations.

Lush still supports having co-ed dorms even with problems like noise violations.

“I remember the feeling of being forced to live in an all-female dorm was just another aspect of censorship and suffocation,” she said.

Lush said she believes this change will help with student retention rates at Wesley.

“It says that the administration is no longer acting juvenile about student maturity and capabilities.”