New Residential Colleges to Not Have Full Kitchen, HVAC
By A Student Who Fears Not Getting Good Housing for Publishing This
Along with the announcement regarding the new name for Residential College A, Vanderbilt University has announced that future residential colleges will be constructed without functioning HVAC systems.
“We’re excited for this change,” said an administrator in the FutureVU office. “We believe that not including any kind of central heating or air-conditioning system will really help students living in the new residential colleges form a closer, more tight-knit community. We picture students sitting together on the lawn outside Nicholas S. Zeppos College in the summer months under the 98°F Nashville sun rather than in the stifling brick oven we’ve constructed for them. In the winter, they’ll have no choice but to come together and huddle for warmth or else perish. Bonding with each other is bound to happen!”
The FutureVU office says the idea for excluding what has now become a basic necessity in any modern dwelling was a natural jumping off point from their earlier decision to remove all basic cookware from Kissam and E. Bronson Ingram suites.
The student body, according to the FutureVU office and the FutureVU office alone, has really taken to the Kissm/EBI model of dining. Residents of those dorms can either buy a microwave to keep in their dorm and try to figure out how to get a complete, nutritious diet with that as their only cooking utensil, or they may wait in line for the opportunity to enjoy one of Vanderbilt’s many mediocre, yet still overcrowded, dining halls.
“Having more students than seats in our residential college dining halls has done a lot to bring people closer. Physically. And physical proximity equals close community,” the administrator said. “At least that’s our motto when it comes to making Blakemore doubles into forced triples.”
By limiting available seating areas in the Kissam and EBI dining halls and eliminating any option for students in residential colleges to make their own food, the FutureVU office believes they’ve created an environment where getting to know new people is fun and, most importantly, inevitable for the upperclassmen living there. “There’s nothing seniors with well-established friend groups like more than getting to eat next to strangers.”
“First, we took away the ability for students to feed themselves. Now, we’re taking away the environmental controls. Our hope in removing some of these very basic necessities,” the administrator continued, “is that without any other means at their disposal, students will have no choice but to rely on each other to survive. We plan on taking away something new with each upcoming rendition of the residential college model – private bathrooms, beds, locks, community bathrooms – until there are no walls, no doors, no barriers between students. Just a group of people living completely and totally together in the most barren structure possible.
“Picture a large white tent on Alumni Lawn.”
The administrator assured students that just as not including full kitchens in Kissam and E. Bronson Ingram suites was not a ploy to get more money by forcing students into a larger and more expensive meal plans, not including any air-conditioning or heating in the new residential colleges was not an attempt to increase the college’s revenue. “These changes are all about community.”
Personal fans and heated blankets will be available for students to purchase through Vanderbilt’s Office of Housing beginning next fall.
