From the moment students walk under the crimson archway onto campus, they’re guided to believe in the strong sense of community OU strives to achieve. We’re encouraged to study together, eat together, join clubs and live in community housing. We’re supposed to make friends with our suitemates, meet people from different buildings and get to know someone who may not have the same interests as us. We’re a diverse group, but we connect like one big, crimson family.
This happens for the most part. Students who don’t know each other smile at one another on the sidewalk. People hold doors for the person behind them. We don’t scoff at someone with an eccentric hairstyle. But one recent addition to the campus may be making it a little more difficult for friends to get together and meet new people.
If you’ve ever gone to visit a friend who lives in Headington Hall, you know you have to wait in the lobby while your friend comes down to sign you in at the front desk. If it’s late at night, you may even have to wait for someone to open the door to the building. Then, when you leave, your friend has to sign you out before visiting hours are over.
Students who live in Headington also have a special dining hall on the main floor, where only residents of the building can eat. This is the only dining location Headington residents can use meal exchanges, which limits their options if they want to eat out with friends who live elsewhere.
While every dorm on campus has locking doors and visiting hours to abide by, none have the strict sign-in policy like this new building or exclusive dining services inaccessible to other students. The students in Headington are paying for the specialized atmosphere and the custom meal plan, along with a movie theater and game room, but the way other students are excluded from the same lifestyle is destructive to the community atmosphere. Why must students be signed in and out of Headington simply because they live somewhere else? Are they a threat to the occupants of the new dormitory? We’re all attending the same school, and we’re all working hard to be here.
Considering the “Sooner family” ideal we like to think we are a part of, the way some outsiders of Headington Hall are treated is disappointing. A couple weeks ago, some friends and I went to review in a study room in Headington with a classmate who lives in the building. On our way out the door, someone watching a football game in the lobby left us with these parting words: “You can take yourselves and go study in your own dorm” — not exactly words of welcome from a fellow Sooner.
While words like these may not be a common occurrence or an accurate representation of the attitude of all Headington Hall residents, it does prove that the new building has somehow gained a reputation as the superior residence hall and its occupants with it. It’s nice to have a new, impressive complex on campus, and it may be superficially superior to the other residence halls. But as far as the character and status of the residents — we’re one in the same. We all have to write research papers and fight traffic on game days. We’re all part of the Sooner family, and it’s time we start acting like it.
