The State of Theme Communities

Last Thursday, theme community offers were released following several changes made to the review and selection procedure. While the objectives of these changes, detailed below, may be well-intentioned, we are concerned about the flawed design of the new process, the lack of timely communication, and the exclusion of student voices. Home to hundreds of students, theme communities are a microcosm of the broken student-housing administration relationship.

Aimed at removing selection power from theme community leadership, these changes made by Residential Engagement & Wellbeing (REW) included implementing a lottery system, designating Community Development Coordinators (CDC) as primary reviewers, and removal of the application evaluation rubric, all without consultation with or formal notification to theme communities until four days before the application deadline. Furthermore, REW’s decision to relocate Sylvia Rivera Community (SRC), though not followed through, was not communicated to students until a resident discovered the change on the theme community location webpage.

As members of theme housing leadership, we want to bring transparency and clarity to an application process that seems to change each year, often without notice to students. By bringing light to the specific challenges we faced this year with the Office of Community Living (OCL), which oversees REW, Housing & Operations, and Community Safety, we wish to encourage more dialogue between the students and the administrators, particularly as the external review of OCL by a consulting firm hired by the Office of Student Affairs begins later this month. Finally, by evaluating our purpose, we hope to prompt a more dynamic discussion on the role of theme communities in the Amherst social and residential experience.

Cornerstone of College Life

Since the ban on fraternities in 1984, affinity-based theme communities have been the cornerstone of communal college life at Amherst. With 97% of Amherst students living on campus, these living communities provide spaces where residents celebrate their shared cultures, interests, and identities. For example, the Asian Culture House (ACH) and Charles Drew House hold weekly house meetings highlighting various topics important to their community. SRC offers gender-inclusive bathrooms and single rooms to its queer residents. Each community takes care of its residents and thus its residents take care of it too. As such, students feel a strong sense of belonging to their house.

While REW oversees theme communities, it has traditionally taken a hands-off approach, granting student leadership a great degree of freedom in choosing future residents. Every spring, interested students submit applications to unique questions posed by each community, and house leadership carefully reviews them to determine each applicant’s fit. Desired qualities for a resident include a passion for the community’s theme, a willingness to contribute to house activities, and a motivation to improve the community. Under this framework, theme communities have welcomed enthusiastic residents every year and declined students who may have applied only to vie for good housing.

The previous selection model is not without controversy. Severe peer-to-peer bias during application review, particularly by the former leadership of ACH, has been a major point of student dissatisfaction with the selection process. ACH was consequently downsized from two floors to one this past year. Without the need to justify application rejections, the process was undoubtedly prone to such bias. Nonetheless, allowing each theme community to maintain primary control over the application process is key to ensuring the sustainability of the house and adherence to its long-held mission.

This year’s application process completely reversed the student-led framework. Instead of preemptively working with new leadership to establish a mechanism that addresses bias, such as requiring decision justification, REW has penalized every theme community without warning. The new procedure dismisses community autonomy, increases the likelihood of insincere students taking advantage of the process, and slashes the central ethos of affinity-based theme communities: creating safe spaces supported by engaged and compassionate residents.

Sudden Loss of Autonomy

OCL’s failure to communicate with its student constituents has persistently frustrated nearly every Amherst student. REW’s decision to eliminate theme community leadership’s authority over the application process was no different. Student leadership was notified of a series of substantial changes just one week before the review meetings began on Feb. 10. In an email sent to leadership on Feb. 3, REW stated, “This shift aims to standardize application processes within [t]heme [c]ommunities, eliminate concerns of peer-to-peer bias during application review, ensure that the returners have a chance to return through the lottery system, and support the influx of new residents into the [t]heme [c]ommunity.”

The shift meant that CDCs were given complete control over the process, with the option for house leadership to opt-in to reviewing the applications under the oversight of their CDC. During the sole review meeting, the group was expected to go through each application line by line. With the number of applications for each house ranging from 50 to nearly 150, undue pressure was put on CDCs and house leadership to be meticulous with their review while being conscious of time. Furthermore, it appeared the CDCs were understaffed and were not given adequate information to respond promptly to students’ questions. The departure of a former CDC over winter break further complicated channels of communication: The change of CDC for several theme communities was announced on Jan. 28, after the semester had begun.

Two additional changes were made without timely notification or consultation with house leadership. First, the selection method was changed from the “accepted, waitlisted, or denied” system to “eligible or ineligible” for the lottery, where 50% of spots are decided in a returners’ lottery, and the rest of the spots are decided in a lottery of any remaining returners and eligible new applicants. Students not selected in the lottery were waitlisted. Second, community-specific rubrics previously used in the review process were replaced by “an informal rubric” to determine lottery eligibility, which REW provided only upon further inquiry by leadership. This rubric consists of only two requirements: “1) The application is complete; 2) The application aligns with the values of the [t]heme [c]ommunity, [the OCL], and Amherst College.”

The decision-making process was utterly devoid of student voices. The absence of punctual communication removed the ability of house leadership to respond and engage in meaningful discussions with REW about these major decisions. Students had a limited window to voice their concerns, nor was there enough time to incorporate their suggestions into this year’s process.

More importantly, these changes allowed applications of almost any quality to be lottery-eligible, depriving theme community membership of its meaning. Under the informal rubric, some houses marked zero applications as ineligible, and the house with the most applications marked only seven applications as ineligible.

It is an injustice that students who dedicated incredible time and effort to their applications are placed in the same lottery as applicants who wrote just a few sentences. Theme communities are places of belonging built by their residents; without consideration for an applicant’s commitment to fostering such a space, this process undermines decades of community-building efforts by past and current residents.

Negligence of Student Perspective

The negligence of Housing & Operations and REW poses a genuine threat to preserving community safety. One example of this occurred the week of the application deadline. A student realized that the location of SRC listed on the college website had changed from the fourth floor of Moore Hall to the ground floor of Morris Pratt Hall.

Although Morris Pratt itself might have no issues as a general residence hall, the ground floor is non-conducive to theme community living. The ground floor features narrow hallways and only two tiny common spaces on opposite ends of the floor. No single-stall or gender-inclusive bathrooms were to be found, which are instrumental to SRC’s purpose as a safe space for queer students. It would cut SRC’s space availability by half, even as expressed interest in SRC remains high. Furthermore, the exposure of the ground floor to party-going students betrays the privacy of students who may not be out of the closet yet and, as such, would endanger them.

In response to this news, many residents and prospective applicants felt confused and misled, especially since this change came after the open house. When confronted with this change, REW reassured students that it was a typo and promptly changed the location back to the fourth floor of Moore. Still, this mistake caused widespread student concerns about REW’s judgment.

These concerns deepened when SRC requested to know if it would be moved and, if so, how the community could provide input. REW informed SRC leadership that if SRC does not garner enough interest or accepted offers, REW would indeed downsize the community by moving its location to the first floor of Morrow, or potentially disband it altogether. This important information, again, was only solicited when SRC leadership inquired further.

This was not the first time Housing & Operations attempted to or actually sprung a sudden change in housing on students, nor the first time a student has had to make repeated inquiries to the administration in order to preserve the dignity of their living space. The lack of consideration of student perspectives has come to be expected of the OCL, a detriment to any prospects of regaining student confidence and trust.

Theme communities form important pillars of the college as places where like-minded students can gather and feel at home to be themselves, whether because they enjoy the arts, the language, or the inviting culture cultivated there. Crucially, theme communities are not exclusionary, nor are they ever a form of segregation. These spaces have expanded the social fabric of the college, giving students opportunities to engage with the campus community uniquely.

To preserve the prominence of these spaces in student life, it is imperative for OCL to engage with student concerns and for applications to be reviewed with the context of preventing potential harm and preserving the well-being of students seeking safety and belonging. Furthermore, theme communities should prioritize residents who demonstrate genuine care for the community and its residents. Without such standards, theme communities will slowly lose meaning and become a shadow of everything they hope to be.

A Communal Conclusion

It is with great disappointment that we failed to be a community by the students, for the students. We ask OCL: Should our relationship not be reciprocal if we both care for our students? There is no excuse for the radio silence until one week before application review, no excuse for removing our autonomy from the selection process without consultation, and no excuse for inconsiderate decisions that undercut the very mission of theme communities.

But resilience is embedded in our communities, and we remain dedicated to reviving our purpose.

Spring 2025 Leadership of:

Asian Cultural House

Charles Drew House

Latinx Culture House

International Theme Community

Sylvia Rivera Community