Home Sweet Hogwarts?

This fall marks the debut of design-your-own housing communities, 10 groups of rooms across campus where students of certain shared interests live together. Following a lengthy application process that requires student coordinators to set prospective goals for a community and find at least 14 like-minded students, there is now housing for political pragmatists, plant- based eaters and even Harry Potter fans.

Together with three larger living-learning communities—one for young entrepreneurs, another where “world citizens” can mingle and Triangle House, which focuses on LGBTQIA issues— this new living arrangement represents the College’s first step toward establishing new “neighborhoods,” inspired by the houses at schools such as Harvard and the University of Chicago. Expected to open in 2016, neighborhoods will function as residential clusters that students can inhabit for three years.

Until then, Meghan Chamberlain ’17 of the “River Conserva- tion” community in South Fayerweather Hall loves living and working with her close friends. Predominantly members of the Ledyard Canoe Club, the group uses its allotted funding for meals with professors, river cleanups and visits to the local wastewater treatment plant. At “Muggles for Magical Awareness” in Mid-Mas- sachusetts Hall, Brandon Mader ’17 sees the culture and politics of Harry Potter fostering rich discussion. “What can Potter teach us about morality or about how we conceive of heroic virtues?” he muses. The planning of a quidditch match and Yule Ball are also on the table.

Not all reaction to the themed spaces has been positive. A September editorial in Valley News criticized the College’s en- dorsement of “self-segregation,” asserting that students grouped by interest “aren’t as likely to learn about opposing views or about tolerance.”