The Benefits of Day Student Dorm Affiliation
After years of considering feedback from day students and day student parents, Dean of Students Melissa Mischke and Dean of Residential Life Arthur Cosgrove proposed that next year, all new day students will be affiliated with dorms. In an environment where day students may initially struggle to find a connection to the residential campus, dorm affiliation is a necessary step towards day student inclusion.
Day students are often grouped together as if they are their own residential sector. However, the Academy’s 272 day students, hailing from towns scattered across New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine are unlikely to form as close-knit a community as a forty-person dormitory, where friendly interaction is merely steps down the hallway.
Because of this physical and emotional separation within the day student category, new and current day students may find themselves feeling isolated in this so-called day student “community.” Having a physical place on campus to ground themselves, and an automatic connection to fellow Exonians affiliated with that place, will provide day students a sense of kinship that they might not have otherwise.
Dorm affiliation could help facilitate day students transition into the school. Upon their arrival, all new students face different teaching methods, more homework, and a general confusion complicated by the large campus size and the overwhelming number of clubs, classes and classmates. While new boarders’ dorm communities provide them friends to sit with at meals, with upperclassmen dorm mates to consult for advice to boot, new day students face the same adjustment challenges as new boarders without an immediate friend group or upperclassmen mentors to converse with.
Socializing with peers outside of the classroom, club or athletic setting is an aspect of the Exeter experience that is not as readily accessible to day students as it is to boarders. The dorm affiliation proposal would let day students participate in recreational events that were once exclusive to boarders, such as Academy Life Day festivities, dorm teas and nighttime coffeehouses and gym nights.
Dorm affiliation also offers practical solutions for day students in their everyday lives. During snowstorms, when the roads are blocked and day students can not drive back to their home, they can spend the night at their affiliated dorm without feeling like a guest burdening a host.
During the school days, having a dorm space would provide day students a haven, more private than the day student lounge or the library, where they can relax between classes or drop off heavy textbooks and bulky sports equipment bags, usually strewn across the floor and crammed in the cluttered cubbies of the Agora, defenseless against theft.
Dorm affiliation is a long-anticipated and imperative initiative that will enhance day students’ Exeter experiences by offering companionship, support and facility from the moment they step on campus and throughout their high school career.