Lifelong Oxford residents have had the opportunity to observe one of the greatest migrations in the history of Ole Miss during the past 15 years or so -- the gradual mass exodus of students moving off-campus to live, leaving dorms that are barely half-full year round.
Construction of apartments in Oxford has been on the rise for the past decade. Vast expanses of forest have been cleared to make room for the new building projects. Once quiet and isolated, old neighborhoods on College Hill Road and Old Taylor Road are now surrounded by pre-fab housing units and ultra-modern apartment complexes. Minivans filled with kids going to school are being passed by college students in 4runners on their way to class as far out as Lakeway Gardens on Old Sardis Road and seven miles south of Oxford on Highway 7.
Traffic jams(!) are becoming the norm at 7:45 a.m. and lunchtime because the students are either on their way home or on their way back to campus, making life miserable for everyone.
But why the exodus? Why have the students abandoned the residence halls?
The physical condition of the dorms alone is a fairly convincing argument for just about any student to want to get as far away from them as possible, along with the regular fluctuations in power, air conditioning, hot water, heat and the odd fire drill at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night. Communal bathrooms are another reason all by themselves for many students to reject dorm life, but I digress. These are things that require money and time to fix, and since Ole Miss is regularly short of both, those must wait for another column.
There are some things, however, that the university might be able to change immediately that could make residence halls a more inviting alternative to the sprawling complexes, but they require slightly more open-mindedness than is ordinarily displayed in Mississippi.
For starters, drop the ridiculous visitation hours that are so rigidly enforced and universally disliked by students. Wake up folks: Many college students like to have visitors after 11:45 at night. Most students don't need to be told to get members of the opposite sex out of their rooms for them, either. They're old enough to tell them themselves, thank you very much, and they ought to be able to when they're damn good and ready. We're supposed to be adults here, right? The dorms treat the students like kids.
Another idea that may seem equally radical: Co-ed dorms. Omygod! Did someone actually suggest that males and females can live in close proximity and not act like animals? Has anyone in the administration ever been to any of the new complexes? They don't separate the apartments by sex, and most everyone seems to get along swimmingly, with none of the sexual hysterics that the suits are so afraid of. Co-ed dorms could also completely empty about six other dorms on campus for the renovations they so desperately need.
We've checked on this. The state of Mississippi may not like it, but it should not be a violation of cohabitation laws for students at the state's finest institution of higher learning to be treated like adults. We should not feel offended by following the examples already established at Stanford, Dartmouth, UCLA, Harvard, Brown, Tulane and Michigan, just to name a fraction of the schools, public and private, that apparently have more trust in their students than we do.
The neglect of the dorms must be remedied as soon as possible, lest the campus sink more money into dubious endeavors like the food court, whose principal meaning of life was to serve the students living on campus Ð all 12 of them.