Pomona’s trustees want to move all freshmen to South Campus. They hired a consulting firm to report on the quality of campus life, and the consulting firm charged them thousands of dollars to tell them what every Pomona student already knows: housing for sophomores sucks. So why not move all freshmen to South Campus in order to improve the housing situation for sophomores?

Before adopting such a policy change the trustees need to consider several effects that moving all freshmen to South Campus would have.

Most significantly, interclass interaction would suffer. One of the things that separates high school and college is that class distinction doesn’t matter so much anymore. At Pomona, it isn’t uncommon for freshmen that live in Smiley and Walker to have many junior and senior friends. And because there are currently many sophomores on South Campus, there is increased interaction in the smaller latitudes. Also, interclass interaction cuts down on the need for fake IDs on campus. In addition, KD is not going to take kindly to being more isolated from freshman girls.

Another cost of an all-freshman South Campus is that lots more stuff will get broken. Some would argue that its just the immaturity of the class of 2003, but there does seem to be a trend toward upperclassmen with more common sense when it comes to property destruction.

In any case, are sophomores so unhappy that we are willing to risk our current campus dynamics in order to give them better housing? Do sophomores really have it so bad compared to students at other colleges? Do we really have campus dynamics? Are they something that can be risked? Can’t we just build a new dorm please? And some jacuzzis while we’re at it? And if we move all freshmen to South Campus, will we have better dorm parties again?

Whatever our answer to these questions, one thing is clear: the decision to move freshmen to South Campus is not one that should be made by the trustees. They are the group most disconnected from the issue. And it should not be made by the head sponsors. They are too biased and cling to what bureacratic power they have with surprising intensity. Nor should we let the Senate decide. We’ve seen how in touch they are with student sentiment during ID time votes of the past. No, we should put it to a vote of students that lived in Walker or Smiley as freshmen. An unorthodox method of choosing to be sure, but the best method.