As a freshman, eagerly trying to decide where I wanted to spend the first quarter of my college career, the question I asked anyone I could find is a question I have continued to ask in the following years: which dorm community should I live in and why?
Everywhere I turned, I heard all about the wonderful traditions and people present in all of Binghamton University’s residential communities. And in every single case, in addition to traditions, I always heard the following classification for each community: Newing College is for frats, College-in-the-Woods is for potheads, Mountainview College is for athletes, etc.
These self-perpetuating stereotypes were present every time I entered any dining hall around dinner time. As a native of Newing myself, I can tell you what any other Newing resident prior to this year could tell you. After 6 p.m. on a weeknight, you would be bound to see rows and rows of people wearing their Greek-letter shirts, with small tables of non-Greeks dispersed among the masses. Similar scenes greeted me in most of my other dining experiences on campus, albeit with different dominant groups.
Now, if there is one thing that I brag about to my non-Binghamton friends besides Binghamton University’s School of Management, its Nature Preserve, its basketball, soccer and volleyball teams or its party scene, it is the diversity present among Binghamton’s students (sorry for the slight rambling, I really like showing up my friends when it comes to college). So why is the diversity that I see around campus not found in most campus dining halls?
It is with this question in mind that I look with hope and anticipation toward the future of dining experiences in BU.
With the construction and demolition occurring in Newing College, Newing residents have been forced to eat at other dining halls, mainly Dickinson and CIW, the two closest dining options available to them. And so I was pleasantly surprised to walk into the CIW Dining Hall this past Tuesday night and see a complete mix of students from all different areas of campus life.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love that each community has its own unique flavor and traditions. But there’s a difference between that and having the student body segregated into stereotypes.
I hope that with the completion of the planned Newing/Dickinson Dining Hall and others like it in the future, we will see more co-habitation and interaction between the different sections of the student body. I mean, what’s the point of having a campus as diverse as ours if you’re just going to interact with the same group of people for four years? I don’t know about you, but I’d get bored.