With OEC (Outdoor Environmental Club) and BITE (Beloit Independent Theatre Experience) vacated with the intention of being sold, there’s a lingering question for students who still live in special interest housing: are we next?
The college hasn’t expressly said that they plan to do away with more houses. That being said, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence to see two houses axed with so little notice, especially in context of the abysmal communication around the housing price increase. As someone who lives in a special interest house, I find the recent changes worrying.
As things stand, it’s unclear what the college’s plans for special interest housing actually are. location tied inextricably to a club. Even for groups like BSFFA (Beloit Science Fiction and The same email that announced the housing price increase briefly outlined a plan which implied some fairly radical — though not particularly specific — changes., but there hasn’t been any communication since then. “[F]rom Fall 2027, special interest housing will consist of a mix of residential options… [T]hese residential options will be more flexibly allotted based on availability and the number of pledged residents rather than being assigned to any specific club or organization.”
There hasn’t been any communication since then. Given that the future of this plan is unclear, it’s important to me to advocate for the existence of special interest housing in its current form, especially because I feel that special interest houses are more vital to campus than they’re given credit for.
The most straightforward appeal of special interest housing is the existence of a concrete location tied inextricably to a club. Even for groups like BSFFA (Beloit Science Fiction and Fantasy Association), which have spaces in dorms instead of houses, members find community in having locations which are theirs.
Obviously clubs would prefer not to give up their spaces. These spaces have history, and their residents are incentivized to want to keep them because they live there. It feels wrong on a pretty fundamental level to have a space you love taken away, no matter what the justification is.
In turn, there are some pretty clear financial incentives for the college to sell additional houses. Selling them means more money in the short term, and given that the college has been operating at a financial deficit for the majority of the last several years, it’s an appealing alternative to cutting costs elsewhere. There’s also the price of upkeep and the fact that, under certain conditions, Beloit might be forced by the city to renovate houses to keep them up to code, whether or not it can afford to do so.
Even with the legacies tied to these houses, it’s hard to argue for sentimentality over practicality. History might be valuable to individuals, but it doesn’t keep institutions running. The perspective of the administration, then, might be that the risks of keeping special interest houses outweigh the benefits.
But special interest housing should be a boon to the college. The thing is, they’re more than just places for current students to live. The fact that this kind of housing exists at all at Beloit is extraordinarily rare. It should be a draw for prospective students. It should be a way to pull a more diverse set of identities and interests for students who feel like there are spaces for them.
And yet, it’s hardly advertised. I think that poor advertising is best exemplified by the relative emptiness of special interest housing. To be clear, by no means are houses uninhabited, but a lot of them have plenty of open rooms. It’s bizarre to me that students are choosing to live in dorms instead of in actual houses. People should be clamoring to live in these things. It isn’t — or wasn’t, if the price of housing ends up being raised — even any costlier than living in a dorm.
Currently, individual houses and clubs are primarily dependent on the people running them for their advertising and outreach. What that means is how effective a given house is at finding residents is dependent wholly on the students administrating its associated club. Students change out year by year; so if you end up with a club run by students who happen not to be very good at outreach, the occupancy will suffer until that changes. Or — and I have seen this happen — if the majority of a club graduates all at once, you’re going to be left with a bunch of underclassmen scrambling to pick up the pieces.
I don’t expect — or want — the college to exert more control over special interest houses. But control isn’t the same thing as support. Right now, there are very few standardized procedures for how houses are operated. It all feels very haphazard, and because of that, special interest houses feel sort of anomalous. They’re incidental add-ons that the college happens to have.
That’s also because, again, there isn’t much effort to market the concept of special interest houses on the college’s end. Beloit doesn’t need to take it upon themselves to advertise individual houses. But advertising their existence as a whole? Showing potential students that they have the option to move into these interesting, eccentric community spaces, and getting a more varied set of students because of that?
And the existence of special interest housing already does draw students, even if its potential for doing so isn’t maximized. I don’t think it’s easy to see the impacts of having something like this, because there isn’t a perfect way to measure how it correlates to student interest. But the presence of things that people like is itself marketing. Resources can be saved in some areas because you’re using the existence of these spaces as a way of garnering interest. With BITE, Beloit’s performing arts program didn’t have to be as robust to attract students interested in theater. You could look at BITE House and say: “oh, the theater must have a presence here, if the college has a whole house dedicated to it.”
And because special interest housing is rare, it makes Beloit stand out to students who might have chosen alternative colleges. It means that Beloit can still offer something to students who might have chosen more selective schools, if the opportunity for that community appeals to them more. That kind of interest isn’t exclusive to people who want to live in those houses, either, because it shows what kind of presence shared-interest communities have here, even if Beloit offers less in other areas.
Eliminating something unique like this hurts Beloit. It makes it less unique, appealing, dynamic — whatever marketing buzzwords you want to use. Even if there isn’t an immediate financial incentive to keep them around, it’s like killing off a species. It hurts the biodiversity, the ecosystem as a whole. And that will hurt the college in the long-term.
Featured image: Betty Cavicchia’28
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