Campus Ecologist

Volume 11, Number 2, 1993

From Home to Hall: An Ecological Transition

by Kimberley A. Wilson

and James H. Banning

Introduction

Since over two-thirds of students entering four-year institutions of higher education live in residence halls during their freshman year (Boyer, 1987) and spend approximately seventy percent of their time in residential environments (Baum and Valins, 1977), on-campus housing facilities can be considered a "home away from home." In addition, the student's move from "home" to "hall" can be viewed as an ecological transition. Bronfenbrenner (1979) defines an ecological transition as occurring "whenever a person's position in the ecological environment is altered as the result of a change in role, setting or both. " The general application of the concept of ecological transition to freshman year adjustment has been suggested by Banning (1989). The purpose of this article, however, is to look specifically at the "home to hall" move as an ecological transition and to use the description of the student's room at "home" in comparison to the student's room in the "hall"as a way to view the potential stress of the transition. If the sending environment (home) is significantly different from the receiving environment (residence hall), the degree of stress on the student wi1 be more severe and perhaps the likelihood of attrition will increase. As noted by Astin (1977), student satisfaction with campus housing is a critical factor of success and retention in the campus environment.

The Physical Environment of the Home

Three hundred and forty five students returned a survey which asked them for a description of furnishings in their room at home. The following table lists the findings:

Type of Furnishing	%Yes	%No
Television	42.6	57.4
Bed	98.6	1.4
Couch	8.4	91.6
Table	29.0	71.0
Chairs	64.9	35.1
Mirror	75.9	24.1
Closet	95.4	4.6
Desk	75.4	24.6
Refrigerator	4.3	95.7
Microwave	2.0	98.0
Toaster Oven	1.4	98.6
Bookshelf	75.7	24.3
Stereo	84.6	15.4
Posters	89.6	10.4
Lamp	90.1	9.9
Air Conditioner	21.2	78.8
Dresser	89.4	10.4

The Social Environment of the Home

Critical to understanding the home bedroom social environment is the question of occupancy or sharing of the room. The survey results indicated that ofthe 345 students completing the survey, 89 percent indicated that they did not share their room with any other family member. 11 percent shared their room with at least one sibling. Thirty three percent indicated they did not share a bathroom.

Other questions of importance are the social issues of autonomy and responsibility of the home bedroom. Several of the survey questions gathered information in this area. 85.5 percent of the students indicated that they were able to decorate their room (most of the time). 44.9 percent said that (most of the time) they purchased the decorations, but only 16.5 percent indicated they actually purchased the appliances.

Physical/Social Interactions

Important to all ecologies is the physical/social interaction. This relationship is also important to understanding the home to hall transition. Most bedrooms in middle class homes in America run about 10' by 9' in size plus or minus a few square feet. On the other hand most university residence hall rooms run about the same size, but are most often occupied by two persons rather than one. While the furnishings provided by most universities are similar to the home (bed, table, desk, chair, closet, dresser, and lamp) and most campuses allow amenities (television, stereos, and fans), they have to fit in half the space of the home bedroom due to the prevalent two per room policy on college campuses. This interaction basically produces an increase in social density and at the same time produces an increase in physical density (half the physical space for the typical furnishings). In the environmental psychology literature, both of these conditions have long been associated with increased stress.

The bathroom environment also represents similar dynamics, in that social density is increased for nearly every student. Many students (one-third) had private bathrooms and none shared their bathroom facilities with 20 to 30 students as would be the case in the common "gang" bathroom arrangements in most college and university residence halls. In addition, no one in the home environment will find the bathroom 30 to 40 feet down the hall!

These descriptive comparisons show the contrast between the sending environment and the receiving environment in terms of both physical space, social space and the interaction of physical and social density. Added to these differences is the usual situation in which the roommate is assigned rather than chosen and is unknown in terms of personality and life-style preferences.

The "implications" question is whether the nature of the transition from home to school produces stress that is appropriate "grist" forthe development of students or whether the stress is another piece to the attrition and failure rates of students in higher education.

Implications

New construction

The majority of residential buildings on college campuses today were constructed in the late 50's and 60's. Because of the rapid increase of people returning to universities during this time, many institutions were prompted to construct large facilities quickly to accommodate these students. Most of these buildings were designed with large community bathrooms and small rooms where two students were expected to live (Corbett, 1973). This arrangement is referred to as the traditional double-loaded corridor. Riker (1956) notes that the "rooms" of this arrangement contain about the same space needed to park two cars. (Maybe this fact holds a possible solution to the campus parking problem!)

The corridor arrangement appears to be no longer satisfactory or acceptable to an increasing number of incoming students (Sunstad, 1991). As summarized by Einhorn (1988), the corridor society and shared facilities of traditional residence halls leave much to be desired in terms of aesthetics, privacy and opportunities for social interaction. The concept of ecological transition helps to understand this increasing level of frustration with university housing.

What information should new construction take into account? Several trends are clear. One, students have their own bedrooms in their homes. Sharing a bedroom in the home has decreased from sixteen percent in 1950 to only four percent in 1990 according to the reports of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Second, students arrive on campus with twice as many personal items as their predecessors (Donnelly, 1992). Third, the social trend of "cocooning" should be taken into account. Popcorn (1991) defines cocooning as "the impulse to go inside when it just gets too tough and scary outside." It is a gathering of personal items into a personal space that is warm and safe. She also notes it is not about "home", but it is a state of mind and we "want our cocoon to travel with us. " How safe, cozy, and personal are current residence halls. Student residences in the future (not dorms nor halls) should be designed to house students in single rooms that are larger and provide more opportunity for personalization (bring more personal furniture and other items from home). How do you balance this prescription with the issue of cost? It seems that historically the balance was on the side of cost, not on the side of student need and comfort. Despite the claims for the "grist" this imbalance produces for the "developmental mill," it will probably be more cost effective in the long run to take into account student needs and the nature of the ecological transition from home to hall.

Programmatic Implications

Several options are open to housing personnel short of demolishing old buildings! One option is to revisit room furniture policies. Heilweil (1973) states room furniture is the single most important factor in the student's room and is perhaps the least understood. Many institutions require the student use only the university owned furniture, but to allow the student to bring their own furniture from home would serve the dual purpose of easing the ecological transition from home to hall and producing an environment more conducive to feeling at home and safe (cocooning).

To accommodate the opportunity for students to bring their own furniture and to allow more students to live by themselves, the single room programs recently implemented by many institutions may need to be expanded even more. Again, there are cost issues associated with presenting traditional double occupancy rooms as singles, but the student market may demand such a move.

Finally, where new construction is not an available option and the policy changes of more personalization and increased singles are not viable options, then more staff and programmatic efforts will be needed to some how make the "home" away from "home" more homelike.

Summary

Indeed the home environment of many of our current students is quite different from the "hall" environment being offered by colleges and universities. Viewing this difference from the concept of an ecological transition highlights both the physical and social aspects of the "home to hall" move. The importance of this transition is captured by Schlossberg (1989):

For an individual undergoing a transition, it is not the event or nonevent that is most important but its impact, that is, the degree to which the transition alters his or her daily life . . . We may assume that the more the transition alters the individual's life, the more coping resources it requires, and the longer it will take for assimilation or adaption . . . One way of examining the impact of a transition is to assess the degree of difference between the pretransition and the post-transition environments.

Editors Note:

Kimberley Wilson is a 1993 graduate of the Student Affairs Program in Higher Education at Colorado State University and has been a member of the housing staff at Colorado State and Western Oregon State College.

Resource References: The Ecological Transition from Home to Hall

Astin,A. (1977). Four critical years: Effects of college on beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc.

Banning, J. (1989). Impact of college environments on fresh man students. In M. L. Upcraft and J. Gardner (Eds) . The freshman year experience. San Francisco: JosseyBass, Inc.

Baum, A. & Valins, S. (1977) Architecture and social behavior: Psychological studiesof density. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Boyer, E .(1987). College: The undergraduate experience in America. New York: Harper & Row.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Corbett, J.A. (1973). Student-built housing as an alternative to dormitories. Environment and Behavior, 5(4), 413-504

Einhorn, S. (1988). Townhouses draw students. American School and University, 60, 44h-48d.

Heilweil, M. (1973). The influence of dormitory architecture on resident behavior. Environment and Behavior, 5(4), 377-409.

Popcorn, F. (1991). The popcorn report. New York: Harper Collins.

Riker, H. (1956). Planning functional college housing. New York: Columbia University.

Sunstad, N. (l991). Trends: Renovation/construction university housing. (Memo).

Schlossberg, N. K. (1984). Counseling adults in transinon: Linking practice with theory. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

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