Alderman Road dormitories attract a more racially diverse student body than McCormick Road dormitories, according to statistics compiled by the University's Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies obtained by The Cavalier Daily.
This year, 1,393 first-year students live in Alderman Road dormitories. Of those, 392 -- about 28.1 percent -- are non-white. Another 931 -- 66.8 percent -- are white. The remaining percentage is made up of students who did not specify race or who are non-resident aliens.
On the other hand, McCormick Road dormitories house 285 non-white students -- about 14.6 percent of the total residents -- and 1,041 white students -- or about 81.9 percent of residents.
Non-white students include those who identify themselves as black, Asian, Latino or Native American.
Although there are no specific reasons behind the phenomena of racial separation, many offer suggestions as to why the trend continues each year (see related story).
But African-American Affairs Dean M. Rick Turner said race statistics in University housing should not be an important issue.
"I don't think it's a complex issue. It's a no-brainer to me," Turner said. "Students have the right to live where they want to live and live where they feel comfortable. They're making decisions based on their comfort level."
University Housing officials said they do not keep race-based statistics on file. First-year housing placements are assigned on a first come first serve basis.
"We send out housing forms and ask the students to express their housing preferences," University Housing Director Mark Doherty said. "We don't include any information that would ask the students to indicate ethnicity."
Even though he said race is not used in housing assignments, he said there might be a higher representation of non-white students in the Alderman dormitories.
"Looking retrospectively at last year, there's a higher representation [of minority students] in the Alderman area," he said.
Doherty also stressed that students alone are responsible for choosing the dorms in which they are interested in living.
"The current practice is to allow first-year students to choose whether they want to live in McCormick, Alderman, [Munford, Gwathmey and Sprigg Lane], Brown, or Hereford," said John Foubert, assistant dean of students for Residence Life. "What I've heard from several African-American students is that they have found a pleasant living environment in Alderman, which leads them to tell prospective students to select that area."
Some prospective black students may choose their housing after the University's Spring Fling weekend, a weekend of programming for prospective black first-year students (see related story).
In addition to the large difference in racial diversity between first-year housing facilities, upper-class housing follows a similar trend.
Students often choose to live with other members of the same race, as seen in the predominantly white Lambeth Field Apartments and the predominantly black Faulkner Apartments.
Lambeth Field Apartments and Bice House on Brandon Avenue overwhelmingly attract white students. Only 206 of the 807 Lambeth residents (26 percent) define themselves as non-white, and only 98 of the 284 Bice residents define themselves non-white (35 percent). The statistics for Lambeth and Bice show these areas are also attractive to Asian students.
In Bice House, 69 of 284 students identified themselves as Asian, and in Lambeth, 129 out of 807 students marked themselves as Asian -- about 24 and 15 percent, respectively.
Farrah DeLeon, Organization of Young Filipino Americans president, said she had no insight as to why Asian students -- or any minority students -- choose to live where they live.
On the opposite side of the spectrum lie Faulkner and Copeley residence areas. In Faulkner, the majority of residents are black, and in Copeley, the ratio of white residents to black residents is close to 50-50.
The University's student population as a whole is 10 percent black, 10 percent Asian and 2 percent Latino.
In Faulkner, 109 of the 144 residents identify themselves as black, 14 as white, 11 as Asian and two as Latino.
In Copeley, 107 of the 144 residents identified themselves as white, 91 as black, 25 as Asian, two as Native American, and three as Latino.
Turner also said first-year students should choose a living situation where they will feel most comfortable and where they can best experience the independence of living their first year away from home.
"Faulkner has a community where black students feel a sense of social support which adds further life to the University," Foubert said.
While 22 percent of the entire student body is non-white, each dorm is not a microcosm of the University as a whole. "This office has not had many complaints about the living arrangements," Turner said. "[It's] not a major issue for African-American students."
Residence Life Co-Chair Esther Adams emphasized that students are not assigned a dorm based on race.
"It's a completely random selection except for the fact that they get to choose Alderman or McCormick," Adams said. "It's something that's not even in Residence Staff jurisdiction. It doesn't even come up at all."
In Hereford College, where students must complete an application to be eligible for residence, 169 students identify themselves as white -- about 36 percent. One-hundred and nine students consider themselves black (about 23 percent), 105 as Asian (about 22 percent), one as Native American, and nine as Latino -- about 1 percent.
In Brown College, where students must also complete applications to become residents, 182 students (65 percent) identify themselves as white, while 21 identify themselves as black (about 7 percent), 43 as Asian(16 percent), and 14 as Latino -- about 5 percent.
See the Housing Statistics Chart
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