Faculty Housing: Invasive, Archaic?

The Faculty Handbook for the 2013-2014 school year reads, “Academy housing is reserved for faculty members, the faculty member’s spouse and dependents…” Although the Academy offers free housing to faculty, it prevents those who are unmarried from living with their partners in said housing.This policy has been criticized by some, who complain that it is invasive, outdated and unfair. Some have also pointed out what they see as a larger equity issue, including problems of apartment size and benefits between married and unmarried faculty.Dean of Residential Life AJ Cosgrove objects to the policy, saying it is archaic.“My opinion is that anyone in a committed, long term relationship should be able to live together in faculty housing. The notion that adults must be married in order to be in a successful and healthy relationship is a dated social norm,” Cosgrove said. “If this community is truly committed to seeking out a diverse faculty, the school should at least open up this issue for discussion and possible change.”History instructor Amy Schwartz thinks that the policy is deeply flawed. “It is simply and clearly the most explicitly discriminatory policy against single faculty we have on this campus,” Schwartz said. “It seems incredibly invasive to me that my job could dictate something as personal as my relationship, or deny me a relationship phase that is societally normative.”Many faculty also viewed the policy as outdated, since cohabitation, where a couple lives together for a duration of time prior to becoming married, has become a part of our contemporary culture. “If you polled the current members of faculty you would find that a majority of the married couples lived together for a time before they got married,” history instructor Bill Jordan said. " To try to maintain some kind of Victorian-era façade here is silly. We need to develop a policy that recognizes the realities of the American family today.”Science instructor Townley Chisholm said that the policy can often be a shock for younger faculty. “For new faculty who are coming from graduate school or non-dormitory living arrangements, the policy often seems unreasonable,” he said.Schwartz added that the policy had a negative effect on students who commonly look to faculty as role models. “The suggestion is that marriage is normative, that premarital sex is immoral and that single people are less responsible and reliable in their relationship choices,” Schwartz said. “Most of our students will cohabit at some point in the not-too-distant future, and that it might be healthy for them to see mature adults modeling this relationship type, never seems to get much traction.”While many faculty are against the policy, changes have failed to gain traction. “When I pressed the administration on this issue, they always responded that it's not an equity issue, because single people always have the opportunity to marry,” Schwartz added.A common issue brought up regarding faculty members and their partners is security in the dorms. Some interns are often seen with their partners in and out of the dorms, where they both stay, and there are concerns about adults outside the Academy moving in and out of the dorms. “[Exeter’s] policies are trying to balance the needs of faculty for privacy and independence against the needs of students for safety and stability,” Chisholm said.History instructor Giorgio Secondi agreed. “I understand the school has an interest in having some control over which adults live with the kids,” he said. “Having non-Academy adults moving in and out of dorms as if through revolving doors would pose obvious problems.”Still, Secondi hoped that the security issue could be addressed for steady dating partners. “I wonder if the policy can be changed so that it’s less biased against those who don’t marry,” he said.Schwartz believed that the security issues could be easily addressed—the bigger issue, she felt, as lack of interest. “I don't think these issues would be difficult to solve. What's lacking is any real will to solve them. Single people are a small minority of the faculty and being single is seen as a fluid, temporary condition. In addition, many single people are young and many of them move on—interns, for instance. For all those reasons, the issue has never risen to a real priority,” she said.Some faculty also pointed to an inequity in terms of quality of housing.“Engaged/married faculty are often given the priorities when choosing faculty housing. This is why I think the issue is brought up because faculty who are singles, especially interns, are given rooms that are basically the size that of a typical dorm double with a bathroom attached to it,” an anonymous faculty member said.Chisholm, however, viewed this as necessary given the available resources. “There has always been some unhappiness that single faculty rarely get the largest, nicest apartments, but the school needs to house large families as well as small ones, and there is almost always a shortage of dorm apartments big enough for larger families,” he said.Inequity in benefits has also emerged as a topic of discussion.“When you add in the other discriminatory aspects of our benefits, and realize how much more, financially, Exeter spends on its married employees, it quickly becomes a major, glaring equity issue,” Schwartz said.