My thoughts and feelings, organized.

I know this is supposed to be a travel blog, but even on the other side of the world, this is what's been consuming my thoughts all day (besides conjugating predicates in Turkish). Normally, I wouldn't put this kind of writing anywhere that other eyes could see it. But I feel incredibly strongly about this, and as I've only been watching the events of the past couple days unfold on the internet, this is the best way I know to respond.

So here are my somewhat coherent thoughts and feelings on the announcement to close all nine houses in Breckinridge, Broadview, Maclean, Blackstone, and New Grad after the 2015-16 academic year.

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UChicago, I understand why you made this decision. I understand that with the opening of North, it would be economically irresponsible to keep all of the previously existing dorms open as well. I understand that this is the kind of decision that has been made before and will be made again for the purpose of making the University more appealing to a larger applicant pool (and their parents). In five years, every student who lived in these nine houses will have graduated. The eight new houses will have developed some semblance of new culture in North, keeping some of the existing traditions and adding others to craft a new identity, as houses do. In order to make that happen, someone--a group of someones--inevitably has to deal with the painful transition period. I get that.

What I don’t get is your inability to admit that this decision will have lasting, detrimental side effects for anyone who lives in housing for at least the next two years. I don’t understand why you either can’t see or won’t admit the fact that you are demolishing places and communities that people love dearly, in which people grew, bonded, laughed, cried, screamed, and made a place for themselves for four years. Yes, homes are defined by people, feelings, and experiences more than the actual buildings, but when the buildings facilitated so much of how these communities developed, and when you are ready to strip these houses of their identities down to their very names, you are, in fact, destroying homes. And when you decide that’s something to celebrate, without any form of apology or even a recognition of major loss? Without even a hint of genuine commitment to honoring their place in individuals' lives and in UChicago history? You are 100% in the wrong.

Most of us won’t be directly affected by this. Most of us won’t have to see the places and communities we love destroyed. Even many of those who would lose these homes will graduate before the change actually happens. But the College community as a whole will feel this massive blow to an aspect of our school that we’re supposed to take pride in, that’s supposed to make us unique, and that has defined so many people’s UChicago experiences.

Yes, I recognize that the housing system is not for everyone. And yes, there are certainly bigger issues on the UChicago campus that need to be addressed, even just within housing. But this is yet another instance in a long list of scenarios in which the UChicago administration flat-out refuses to admit that its policies, its decisions, and its actions have negative consequences on the campus community.

I come from Crown, a South house with over 100 residents in any given year. My house was created by the merging of two former Shoreland houses when a similar move was made to what was then a brand-new dorm. Even by my first year, most people in Crown would never hear of Dudley or Bradbury, and most after us would never even realize that the Shoreland was once a dorm.

I will not see the Crown I know affected by these kinds of administrative decisions. Crown, housed in a shiny, modern dorm and named after a still-living and recent donor, will be safe for many years to come, both in location and in name. We've had incredible RHs, RAs who are some of the most inspiring people I've ever met, and a warm and welcoming community with its own strange culture and traditions. And I have loved my house more and more for different reasons every year; it has been my home and my sanity at UChicago.

But my experience is not for everyone. My huge house would be overwhelming to some, not quite out there enough for others, not close enough to public transit or other parts of Hyde Park for still others. It’s not old in any way, it’s not what you think of when you think "classic" UChicago, and to be honest, it’s still not quite sure what it is after only six years of existence. The ability to choose the type of community you wish to live in--with an actual variety of options in environment both within and without--is an enormous part of what has made UChicago housing as incredible as it is for such a wide range of people. Removing those options simply cannot leave housing as a whole unaffected.

I won’t see my home destroyed, physically or through the stripping of identity. But as someone who understands and deeply values what the housing system can do for a person, my heart breaks at this news, and rages at the attitude this university has toward its own community. I stand with the satellite dorms. I stand and I mourn with the nine houses that now have an official expiration date.

Long live Breck, Maclean, Blackstone, Broadview, and New Grad. Long live Talbot, Palmer, Wick, Tufts, Henderson, and Midway. Long live Pierce. Long live their traditions, their love, and the homes they gave to hundreds of students over many decades.