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(EstateNewsWire.com, November 14, 2012 ) Matthews, NC -- The Kansas City Star reports on a Missouri state college it says embodies a growing trend: no restrictions on gender assignments in its dormitories. Northwest Missouri State University in Marysville, Missouri last year adopted “gender-neutral” student housing policies.
The school’s new policy was originally prompted by a request from transgendered students. Wanting to accommodate their housing preferences without requiring students to register their sexual identity to switch from one gendered dorm to another, the school decided simply to open all rooms in both its residence halls to any student, regardless of gender.
By the time the small state college had adopted the change, the transgendered students who had requested more on-campus housing options had already graduated or moved off-campus. Some of the beneficiaries of the change turned out to be unmarried opposite-sex couples, who could now sign up to share a residence hall room openly.
Some officials at the school initially had some concerns over how the new unisex campus housing policy would be viewed in its small town setting in conservative rural northwest Missouri, especially after the school issued a press release announcing the change. The director of student housing, however, says she “didn’t hear a thing.”
In the large four-student suites making up some of Northwest Missouri’s dormitory spaces, the school says it gets varying gender mixes. The head of student housing says roommates at the school are more likely to be just friends, rather than romantic items. Students in the same classes or majoring in the same subject often opt to share rooms or suites, as do some siblings. One potential drawback for couples considering a shared dorm is the school requires a room commitment is for a full school year, which may be look less attractive if the romance cools.
An estimated 50 colleges around the country now have similar policies. Private liberal arts schools, starting with Ohio’s Oberlin, were the first to make the move, but large state universities like the University of Michigan and Oregon State have now adopted similar positions.
Kathleen Kerr, incoming president of the American College Personnel Association, who also supervises dormitories at the University of Delaware, flatly says the change “is the trend and it will continue to grow.” She notes a school’s prime motivation is to give students “a safe and comfortable living environment so they can concentrate on their studies,” adding that gender-segregated on-campus housing sometimes “is not the way to do that.”
While schools are handling on-campus gender housing rules “the way that makes the best sense for them,” Kerr says, she adds she knows of no college allowing gender-neutral housing for students below 18 years of age.
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Source: EmailWire.Com 
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