On June 29th, Saginaw Valley State University released an e-mail to all students announcing their new dorm option: mixed-gender dorms. The email read: "Mixed-Gender Housing: Students placed by mutual roommate request and/or community request instead of traditional assignments by single gender." The email also explained that this option is only offered to non-freshman, and only offered for the 4-bedroom 4-person townhouse style units. This means this option will not be offered in freshman suites or living centers.

Confused on this, and not a lot of information given in the email, I called SVSU housing to get more information. The woman who answered the phone explained to me that all four people that apply to live together must have the exact same roommate request forms, meaning all four sheets have the same names written. I also asked if this new policy allowed for a male and female to actually share the same room. She put me on hold to ask, and picked back up, explaining to me that this was all new and they really didn't know any answers. She told me if I had any more questions, to respond to the email.

I realize that since its a 4 bedroom, 4 person, each person would have their own room. I drew conclusions and used my critical thinking skills to figure out that, basically, this new policy allows males and females to be living in the same unit, just with separate bedrooms.

Let me tell you why this is a horrible idea.

Last year, as a third year, I lived in a 4 bedroom suite in Living Center South West. There were 5 of us, all girls, and 3 of us had our own bedrooms, two of my roommates shared a room. Our dorm was relatively clean, we had dishes that sometimes got ignored all week and hair in the bathroom floor and shower. That was about it. If you came into our living room, It was clean, we cleaned up after our own messes in the kitchen and there wasn't really any personal belongings in the living room, besides decorations.

My boyfriend, however, lived next door to us. He lived in the same style of dorm as we did, just there were 6 boys living in his dorm. I occasionally used their bathroom to get ready, and spent ample amount of my time in their dorm. However, there were always dishes and left over food left out, to the point where it would begin to smell. The trash would over flow and it would take multiple trips to get all the trash out before health and safeties. One of the roommates left his stuff in the living room because he didn't have enough space in the bedroom he shared. Wherever they took off their clothing is where it sat, wherever they finished a bowl of ramen is where the bowl stayed.

Males and females live differently. It is different when you are living with your significant other, because you are dating and in a committed relationship. You're dating, and can handle cleaning up after them or having a minor argument about cleaning their own stuff up. But when you're living with other people who you are not in a committed relationship with, it's difficult to clean up after them. They are not your responsibility, and it will become old really fast. I, for one, don't want to go into the bathroom and see somebody's facial hair left in the sink because they forgot to rinse it. I don't want to come home to find some other guy's socks sitting in the living room because that's where he took them off, or his cereal bowl left there because that's where he finished it.

I think that the students who decide to do this mixed-gender housing will most likely be two couples who are friends, deciding to live together. I support that, that makes sense, each person even gets their own bedroom too. However, what happens if one of the couples break up? That would create awkward tension in the house.

What if it's not couple's that live together, and just 4 friends? When females spend ample amount of time around males, they tend to become somewhat attracted to them. This could lead to awkward connections forming in the house, jealousy, and in an extreme case, pregnancy, but lets not go there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a proud cardinal and I love everything that has to do with this school. However, I do not understand how this option even came up, how it got passed, and wonder if they weighed the pros and cons of this decision before it was made.

All-in-all, I do not support this idea of mixed-gender housing that SVSU is offering. If you want to live with your boyfriend, get an apartment. Or do what the rest of society has done and just sleep at each other's places. If you decide to take advantage of this mixed-gender living, good luck to you. Let me know if it works out.