Spaces including the houses on Fraternity Row will be under review in a process to more fairly allocate space on campus. (Photo by Photo Editor Holden Hindes)

A committee of Washington University administrators and community members has been created to work on allocating space in a more student-driven process to better meet the needs of its ever-changing student body.

This group will develop a “shared vision for the future of student space” on campus “to more fairly allocate student facing resources,” the University wrote in a statement sent out to leaders of Student Union (SU), the Interfraternity Council (IFC), the Women’s Panhellenic Association (WPA), and the United Greek Council (UGC) titled “The Future of Student Space at Washington University: Access, Equity, and Transparency.”

The planning process will assess how to provide access to university-owned student controlled spaces on campus, including fraternity houses. By fall 2025, the University will be implementing its new space allocation procedures.

“This process is designed to create a more equitable campus for all of our students,” Rob Wild, Dean of Students, said. “What I’m hoping is that what we come up with is more reflective of the overall student body here in 2022 and what they want from their campus.”

“We’ll also provide lots of opportunities in the planning process for community input,” Wild said. 

Historically, Wild said that the allocation of space on campus has largely been driven by the administration which “created a real challenge for us as a University because I think we view ourselves as a place that’s very student driven.” 

“As we have been in some intense conversations over the last two years about the future of Greek life at WashU, we realized we needed to create a more equitable student-driven process for deciding who should be in what spaces on campus.”

There is no set plan yet for how access to spaces, including houses on Fraternity Row, will be determined in years to come, but Wild said he suspects that part of the discussion will be considering multi-year agreements with student groups that want to access certain spaces.

Fraternities and sororities, like any other campus organizations, will have access to these agreements.

“I do think at the end of this process there will be a path forward for fraternities that want to have houses on campus, but they’ll be on equitable footing as other student groups wanting to have space on campus,” Wild said.

Sophomore Asher Schwartz, the President of Beta Theta Pi, said that the fraternity members he has spoken with have not seemed concerned about the space equity plan because many of them will no longer be students by the time the plan rolls out. 

“I feel like more people will be inclined to work with it than fight against it,” Schwartz added. “In terms of equity of space on campus, I think it’s a good move [to reassess space allocation].”

The University will also be speaking with alumni who were involved with Greek life to hear their perspectives on the planning process. 

“Many of our fraternity and sorority chapters have very active alumni who are involved and we want to make sure we have adequate time to be talking to those alumni and getting their feedback on this process,” Wild said.

In a written statement to Student Life, SU President Miriam Silberman and SU Vice President of Engagement Emma Platt outlined SU’s response to the space equity planning.

“SU sees a lack of space available for many of our groups that is being occupied by Greek life, which although having a comparatively small membership of students percentage wise, creates a disproportionate amount of harm and does not have good membership distributions in terms of diversity and inclusion,” Silberman and Platt wrote.

They added that SU wants to “avoid the space equity discussion being a ‘SFL (Sorority and Fraternity Life) vs SU’ discussion; the reality is that many students would benefit from increased space on campus to host and engage with and around their communities, and so the conversation is bigger than these two groups.”

Along with fraternity houses, the suites within the Women’s Building will also be part of the space reallocation plans. 

“A version of this process took place already in the spring of 2022 when two sororities vacated their suites [in the Women’s Building],” the University’s statement said. “Using a similar student driven process, all of the suites in the Women’s Building — or any future student controlled spaces — will be allocated, beginning in the fall of 2025, on an annual basis through a process that is transparent and ensures the highest and best use of space on campus.”

Deneb STARS, a cohort program for first-generation and low income students, and the Association of Black Students are two organizations that received access to suites in the Women’s Building last year. 

Junior Christina Walker, president of Queens, WashU’s Black Affinity space, is part of both of those groups and also lives in the Hamsini House, “a living-learning community open to all students who are interested in exploring matters related to the African diaspora,” according to the University’s website.

Hamsini House, located in House 5 on Fraternity Row, currently houses 20 students and a Resident Advisor. The House was selected several years back as a pilot program in the University’s work with space equity, Wild said.

Hamsini House and the suites for Deneb STARS and ABS serve as “space[s] you can feel kind of at home without actually being at home,” Walker said.

Walker has been attending Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) since middle school, and living in Hamsini House has provided her a “second home” to live alongside people who better understand her experience as a Black student at a PWI. 

While Walker hasn’t heard people discussing a push for a second Hamsini House, she thinks people would welcome the idea in space reallocation discussions. “Especially considering WashU is admitting more students and the Black population is increasing, I’m sure there will be tons of students interested in that.”

Walker appreciates the University looking to give people spaces on campus, though worries that it “might become an issue” if certain groups feel they are taken less seriously than others.

She said that the space equity planning process needs to carefully vet how people plan on using their spaces and ensure that “people’s voices are being heard equally no matter what their background is.”

“But if it works out in a good way then it’s worth it,” Walker said.

SU’s statement echoed Walker’s concerns: “Our principal concern [is of] certain organizations being prioritized over others even without support from a diverse group of voices.”

On a faster timescale than some of its long-term planning, the University will be working with students to designate spaces on campus for social events, including registered events with alcohol for students of a legal drinking age. 

The committee will also be looking to potentially bring back a permanent nightlife space on campus like the Rathskeller which used to exist in the basement of Umrath. 

“I think that is something Dr. Gonzalez and I are very interested in and we’ll be trying to figure out the best way to facilitate that in terms of location and those kinds of things,” Wild said.

Throughout the myriad ways that University members will be reimagining space allocation, Wild said “there’s going to be controversy.” 

“People have strong feelings about this issue on all sides of it,” he said. “And what we’re trying to do as a university is allow for an opportunity for our current students to have significant input into how they want their campus to be at this part of our history.”