Strong identity undergoing change

Ally Barlow Guest Writer

Every dormitory building at Vassar is rich with its own history, tales of creation, and overall perception. Most of the campus is aware of the widely accepted stereotypes: Raymond is cast as the weird dorm and Davison as the family dorm. Cushing and Noyes residents are so far removed that they live in their own worlds. Because Main and Jewett are so large, they both supposedly lack a familial and community sense among the students who inhabit either of the dorms. Lathrop is home to a constant stream of wild and raucous parties, while living in Josselyn fosters an excellent sense of community due to its location.

While some of these dormal perceptions are easy to brush off and ignore, the one house which elicits the strongest response is Francis Allen Strong House. Merely referring to this residence building in mixed company very often educes a series of snickers and stifled laughter. When any poor girl admits to living in Strong, she is met with sympathy and a medley of “Aww...I hope it’s not that bad,” and similar sentiments. If she is among friends, she may encounter, “Well you can stay in my dorm whenever you’d like to get away from Strong—which I imagine is often!” Some will still acquiesce to the vast majority and claim to be as repulsed by Strong as a moral conservative would be by Vassar College.

The original intention in designating Strong the estrogen lair was to preserve a bit of Vassar’s history as a women’s college. Although it houses only female students, there are no rules or restrictions relative to the gender of those who may enter, use the bathrooms, or even spend nights in the dorm. The Strong stigma exists nonetheless. Many male students refuse to go near the building, for fear of being attacked by a slew of man-hungry and sexually deprived Strong girls or “militant lesbians.” A common and most faulty impression of Strong is that all rooms are constantly closed and unwelcoming, that the residents choose to isolate themselves in some sort of self-imposed fortress. Something exceedingly important to acknowledge is that most Strong girls didn’t choose to be placed in the dorm, in fact many specifically requested “anything but Strong.” Even those who did choose to live in Strong most likely did not do so with the hopes of alienating themselves and living in an impenetrable residence house.

The negative impression of Strong was only exacerbated in 2002, when Jewett was closed for renovation, which incapacitated the dorm and induced a rooming crunch. In order to compensate for the lost space in Jewett, some freshmen were stuck living in forced doubles.

Laureen Cantwell, the current Strong house president, was a freshman at the time of the Jewett renovation. She explained that new students “had already turned against Strong, some even before they arrived, and the dorm activity that year was not very high at all. Some of that was due to conflicts within the house team. You never really realize how important it is for everyone to be on top of their jobs, enthusiastic, and what have you until your house team runs aground or is struggling with any aspect of itself.” After realizing the negative impact of a lack of a cohesive house team, Laureen ran and was elected for the position of House President during her sophomore year. She and her enthusiastic house team have been very active and eager to provide a more positive and accurate perception of Strong to the rest of the campus. “And I love to see how many people over the course of the year ‘convert’ to Strong,” she said. Luckily, over the past two years, I have seen more and more happy residents. With a residential body like this, I can't see us not continuing to grow in the years to come. The enthusiasm of fellow dormers is so vital to the well-being of the dorm for both current and incoming students.”

Over the course of the year, the house team intends to dispel the notions of Strong as a home of reclusive and traditional females and to shed light on its true splendor. To which other dorm can a student come home after a wild night of partying and actually find time to sleep in peace and quiet? In which other dorm can students study on a week night without much distraction? Where else are the bathrooms so clean and beautiful? It would be a challenge to find a more centrally-located dorm building. Due to the efforts of the house team, as well as the residents of Strong and other dorms, everyone will soon recognize the truth: Strong rocks.