Officials are planning to implement gender-inclusive housing beginning in 2021.
Last semester, Student Senate drafted and passed a resolution on gender inclusion in on-campus housing. Sen. (gender-neutral housing) Reid Powell researched and drafted the resolution.
Though the change won’t be implemented for over a year, officials are in the planning stages for the future.
“Things take time, and this is one of those things,” Powell said.
Powell said he has been in communication with Casey Kreger, director of housing and residence life, to plan for the future.
“As of before break, Casey was hoping to officially start gender-inclusive housing fall of 2021,” Powell said.
Powell said the timing is a little bit later than he had hoped for, but he recognizes that dynamic changes in the housing system won’t happen right away.
“This is not one of those issues that I pushed for in senate and then just told housing about and am now just going to stop worrying about; I am going to stay involved,” Powell said.
Jo Muscarella, acting sophomore, said they were aware of the proposal and previously hadn’t expected policy changes regarding housing. They said they are happy about the proposal and are glad university officials are considering it.
Muscarella said they expected to be living with women during their time at OCU, but the option to potentially room with male friends is positive.
“I think that’s really cool; for me, to have that option is really nice,” Muscarella said. “For me, even though I’m non-binary, I kind of consider myself trans-masculine, so I identify as more masculine than female and tend to gravitate towards that, and so I think that’s really cool and gender-affirming that I could live with a bunch of guys.”
Casey Kreger said gender-inclusive housing is a big initiative for housing and OCU.
“I think gender-inclusive housing is something that is needed and welcomed by the housing department and is something that has been on my radar since coming to OCU a couple of years ago,” Kreger said.
Kreger said once the resolution was approved, he started researching other universities’ processes with gender-inclusive housing.
“A lot of aspects of the housing application will have to be recreated, and we will basically be rebuilding the housing application with videos and procedures so everyone is educated on the types of housing and goes through the same process,” Kreger said.
The transition would not be complete by fall 2020, which is why officials are starting in 2021, Kreger said.
“Fall 2020 housing for freshman opens next week, and we wouldn’t have enough time to get the required processes and procedures ready by then, so we are shooting for fall 2021,” Kreger said.
Casey Kreger can be contacted with any questions or concerns at crkreger@my.okcu.edu.
Contributing: Web Editor Luke Barrett
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