To the Editor,

In response to the article written by Kily Wong ’16 titled “The House at the End of the Lane…”, I would love to voice my opinions as a former RA how vital housing communities like Casa Cervantes and student co-ops are to the mental health of the student body. I appreciate that this article identifies that students choose dorms based on a desire for “intimate communities”. I agree 100% and I hope that future Residential Life members will consider this in the future. Many students understand that Wellesley is smaller than universities, but it still can be hard to create clusters or residential communities that feel “close”. In my opinion, this lack of proximity to your hallmates and the fact that it is where you reside for a full year make it obvious that living conditions can correlate to mental health. I’d like to possibly expand on this concept of language clusters, which is popular and successful on campus. While Wellesley prides itself on being a liberal arts college where students can freely choose a plethora of areas they’d like to study, I wonder if these intimate communities could be formed on other criteria. For example, I would find it intriguing if if areas of concentration (like Biology and International Relations) has a particular floor or cluster of a dorm. I think it is no surprise that the article cites the importance of co-op communities and how great those are for students who desire a “different type” of residential life. Personally, I wish there were more Co-Op lifestyle dorms. Several of my friends were interested in SCOOP and were turned down simply because of space. Perhaps, it would be possible for the College to keep this in mind as they renovate. Students want communities that they can identify with and after their first year of housing, they should be able to choose a residential community that identifies with not only their living tastes, but personal interests as well. Wellesley has done a great job in how it handles housing, but I’d love to see more communal style living when I come back in Reunion (in 2020-gasp).

Brittany Lamon-Paredes ’15