For nearly 100 years, Memorial House has housed the entirety of male-identifying freshmen. Although slight variations have been made since its addition to Choate’s campus in 1921 — sprinkling in a few post-graduates or moving a few freshmen to Atwater or West Wing — Memorial House has been a significant part of the traditional first-year experience of Choate boys. In a radical change of events, Dean of Residential Life Mr. Pat Dennehy announced that in the coming 2022-2023 school year, this dorm — the largest one on campus — will take on a co-ed model. Memorial House will be home to 37 girls and 33 boys in the fourth and fifth-form.
In addition to the changes made to Memorial House, ten separate dorms will also be adjusted. Eight new faculty homes are also being built, implementing more residential life changes in one year for the Choate community than in decades.
According to Mr. Dennehy, the discussion to stray from tradition by changing Memorial House’s housing model had been ongoing for a few years. “There has been a lot of positive feedback from students in Mem about their experience,” he said, “But there’s also been a lot of negative feedback. I’ve heard from a lot of students saying ‘my experience was toxic.’” He listed various issues accompanied with having more than 70 freshmen boys in one dorm, the first being that, “We didn’t think it was a very equitable model for boys to have this experience [of living in one big dorm], while the girls are split up into four spaces.”
Dean of Equity and Inclusion Dr. Myers echoed this sentiment, although she interpreted the inequity within Memorial House a little differently. She explained that this massive, concentrated group of boys, bustling with energy, is great for the extroverted but uncomfortable and scary for the introverted. “It just seems like if you get a large group of teenagers in a place, and they’re all living together, some people try to assert themselves as the leaders or, you know, the most popular, but not everybody is extroverted in that way. That can be really uncomfortable.”
Ultimately, the goal of the change was to eliminate this toxic “Mem culture” while maintaining Choate’s freshmen bonding experience across multiple third-form housing facilities and fostering healthier and happier relationships between students. Mr. Dennehy anticipates a major cultural shift throughout the entire school. “Hopefully, it will be a cultural shift in a healthier way,” he said. “The interactions between students that are of different genders will be healthier, which we’ve seen in the Hill House model. My hope: to make more connections between more kids.”
Although the change has resulted in much excitement from Choate community members, it has also sparked conflict and concern. While Memorial House adviser Ms. Kimberly Finn Bolster is excited to be a part of the all-gender and co-ed housing initiative, she is concerned about next year’s freshmen boys. “I’m actually really conflicted. I really like Mem as it is.” She explained that having all the boys in one place forces them to find someone they are comfortable connecting with. “When they’re feeling homesick or they’re struggling, having them in a place where they can connect with other people, it forces them to make contacts. In a smaller dorm, it might be harder for them to find somebody that they can connect with.”
Another Mem adviser, Ms. Aliya Cox, believes there is something special about the freshmen boys starting their experience together at Choate all in one dorm. She said, “You definitely can’t sugarcoat the idea that there’s something special about having everyone in one building, but that doesn’t necessarily make it better.”
As a direct result of the Memorial House change, other dorms will also change the age and/or gender to be housed next year. These are Logan Munroe, East Cottage, Atwater, Mead, Squire Stanley, Archbold, Pratt, Spencer, McCook, and West Wing. “In my 18 years [at Choate], this is the biggest number of shifts I’ve seen,” said Mr. Dennehy. The freshmen boys that would’ve once been placed in Memorial House will be spread across Atwater, Logan, and East Cottage. Sophomore and junior boys will no longer live in Logan; hence, Archbold will transition from a sophomore and junior girls’ dorm to a boys’ dorm of the same age. Since sophomore and junior girls will no longer live in Archbold, Squire Stanley will become a new option for them.
The root of all this change is the School’s desire to create more co-ed and all-gender housing options. Considering the success of Hill House (one of three currently co-ed dorms), the administration and Board of Trustees wish to further explore these new housing models. “From our senior officer position, they wanted to see how this Hill House model went. And the feedback we’re getting from students and the advisers in the dorm has been really positive in terms of the interactions between those students,” explained Mr. Dennehy. He hopes that with the increase of co-ed housing options starting with Memorial House, life at Choate will improve. “I have faith in our students, and faith in our faculty. I am excited about these shifts and hoping it makes our community healthier.”
