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COLLEGIATETIMES
thursday january 22, 2009 blacksburg, va.
www.collegiatetimes.com
International grad student fatally stabbed CALEB FLEMING
news editor A female Asian international student was fatally stabbed in the Au Bon Pain cafe of the Graduate Life Center at Donaldson Brown yesterday evening. Police placed Haiyang Zhu, a 25-year-old male Chinese international student into custody at the scene without struggle. Zhu has been charged with first-degree murder and is currently being held without bond Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said police received a 911 call reporting a female being assaulted in the cafe at 7:06 p.m. When officers arrived at the scene at 7:10 p.m., Flinchum said it was “clear the victim was deceased.” Police found the murder weapon, a knife, at the scene, and Flinchum said Zhu was easily identifiable, though authorities declined to identify the victim, citing the pending notification of next of kin. The female was a graduate student resident of the building, and it appears that she did have a relationship with the suspect, though the details were not clear, Flinchum said. The victim’s country of citizenship was not released. Two ambulances arrived at the GLC on standby but did not enter the facility. There were no injuries treated at the scene, and the victim’s body was removed by the Virginia Medical Examiner’s office, said Tighe Marrone, president of the Virginia Tech Rescue Squad. Flinchum said witnesses of the stabbing were being interviewed by Virginia Tech Police and authorities were attempting to contact the suspect and victim’s families. In response to the stabbing, VT Alerts e-mails were sent to the university community at approximately 7:42 p.m., and College Avenue in front of the GLC was cordoned off. Squires Student Center was temporarily locked down, with no students permitted to exit the building. “I found out about it at 7:30 p.m., and we had a message out to the university at 7:44 p.m.,” said university spokesman Larry Hincker. “It takes a while for 40,000 messages to percolate through the system. We notified the campus community that there was a murder, and that a suspect was in custody.” Prior to the e-mail alert, officers were seen frantically running into Squires. Flinchum said a second 911 call had been placed. “We did receive a call shortly after officers arrived here of shots fired at Squires, which turned out to be a false call,” Flinchum said. The GLC will re-open today. News Reporter Gordon Block contributed to this report.
DANIEL LIN AND LUKE MASON/SPPS
Emergency Medical Team members, top, exit the Graduate Life Center shortly after arriving on the scene yesterday evening. Outside, police set up a perimeter that closed down much of Otey St. starting around 7 p.m. Haiyang Zhu, a 25-year-old graduate student from China, was charged with first-degree murder after being taken into custody on the scene.
The end of an era: Pritchard goes coed CALEB FLEMING
ct news editor “The largest all-male residence hall on the East Coast will house female students in the fall semester,” said Ken Belcher, Virginia Tech’s associate director for occupancy management. Pritchard Hall has held its present place in the Prairie Community since 1969, but the hall that hosts one-ninth of Tech’s on-campus population will now be modeled after Ambler Johnston to accommodate the increasing number of female students. “(Ambler Johnston) is a larger building and a popular building,” Belcher said. “Pritchard hasn’t been as popular for returning students as it is an allmale building.” Belcher said the university has pondered the switch for many years, though it was finalized for the first time in December. “We didn’t have enough women on campus to work out the numbers across the board, so with the increasing number of returning women wanting to stay on campus and more females in the freshman class, it gave us the critical mass,” Belcher said. And while males alone have occupied the residence hall for approximately 40 years, Belcher said that the renovation process is nearly complete. “The bathrooms are in stacks across the building, and we’ve completed three of those already,” Belcher said. “We are going to plan on completing the last one this summer. We designated the rooms in the
building for the fall and will have a coed staff.” Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Spencer had previously spoken against transitioning the hall to a coed housing option. Spencer said demand has resulted in a change of opinion. “The request for coed halls has gone up substantially,” Spencer said. “We’re at the point where we need to go into a large male hall such as Pritchard and convert.”
“We didn’t have enough women on campus to work out the numbers across the board, so with the increasing number of returning women wanting to stay on campus and more females in the freshman class, it gave us the critical mass.” - KEN BELCHER ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR OCCUPANCY MANAGEMENT Belcher stressed that the residence hall is in excellent condition, despite the myths that surround it. “The building is in great shape; the staff has done an amazing job,” Belcher said. “Not really anything physically has to be done.” But contrary to the coed style of the hall’s neighbor, Lee Hall, Pritchard will be almost entirely coed by wing, not floor.
The exception to this being the first and seventh floors, which will be all-male and all female, respectively. “National studies show the best coed housing is by wing, instead of doing a floor of men, a floor of women, and so on,” Belcher said. And Spencer added that the conversion would likely do more than just accommodate the rising number of female students on campus. “It will change Pritchard into a more positive place,” Spencer said. “It has a reputation that it didn’t deserve, and it created an image that will be overcome. What the research shows is that when you convert an all-male hall to a coed hall, it results in a more family-like atmosphere.” The hall will also be divided further for students, by concentration and major. Though the specifics of this plan aren’t concrete, Belcher said that the assignments staff would refine the details after the spring semester in the summer months. Erin Foote, assignments manager, did not offer comment to the Collegiate Times. Foote directed all calls to her supervisor, Belcher. Spencer noted that the switch from single-gender to coed residence halls is not just a reflection of a changing gender balance among students wishing to attend Tech. “The percentage of women has gone up slightly, but it’s more a reflection of the millennial generation of students who are more interested in a mixed-gender environment than they are in a single-gender environment,” Spencer said.
U of Chicago to offer coed, ‘open housing’ policy JUSTIN GRAVES
ct news reporter The University of Chicago recently took the first steps to implement a program known as “open housing,” a concept that allows students of both genders to occupy the same room upon request. This is a relatively new approach to housing on college campuses, and while Virginia Tech has coed dorm buildings, coed dorm rooms are somewhat of a rarity at such intuitions. The program, which was led by a student initiative according to university officials, also goes by the name of gender-neutral housing. The school will not assign anyone to an oppositesex roommate unless they request such a living arrangement. The policy will begin as a pilot program this month, with full implementation expected in the fall of 2009. “In 2007, the Inter-House Council (the student governing body for the House System at the school) completed a resolution requesting the implementation of a policy that would permit students to select a roommate of any gender,” said University of Chicago spokeswoman Julia Morse. “There are some students for whom traditional, same-sex room assignments are not ideal or appropriate, and we believe it is important that housing policies evolve to meet the needs of students to create an inclusive, welcoming environment.” In order to develop the open housing option, a committee of students and staff met to study the possible implementa-
tion of such a program. It was determined that the option be made available to second-, third- and fourth-year students. It will also be available to first-year students, but on an individual basis. The vice president and dean of students approved it in November. At Oregon State University, coed housing is an option as well. OSU follows the same policy that coed housing is only available in upper-classmen dorms. The University of Chicago stresses that the program is not intended for couples, though no questions will be asked. Also, students are never required to live with a member of the opposing gender. “We respect and honor the privacy of our students. Current open housing procedures do not require students to disclose the reason for their roommate requests,” Morse said. “The university also offers single-sex housing, and that option remains available. Open housing will not be implemented in locations where single-sex occupancy is an option.” The new policy has brought considerable controversy from individuals who are more traditional, including parents. Under the program, students are encouraged to maintain an open dialogue with their families. Students over the legal age of 18 are able to make decisions about their own housing contracts. However, students under 18 should discuss housing plans with their families, as they must provide parental consent, per
University of Chicago policy. It is expected that between 2 percent and 4 percent of student rooms at the university will be designated as “genderneutral” locations. Chicago is not the first university to implement open housing, however. Brown University, Dartmouth College, New York University and Princeton are included on the list of schools that have seen success with such living arrangements. “We started with genderbased floors/wings and then moved to ‘coed by neighbor’ assignments where two men could live in a room next to two women on the same floor or wing,” Hansen said. “We created a pilot of the gender inclusive option starting in the 2006-07 academic year. The discussion to move in this direction started with a proposal from a taskforce from the student body government.” OSU has been working with students and the administration on new housing options since early 2004. Mainly they requested the option be available based on the impact of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and creating “safe spaces” that would be welcoming to all. The decision also incorporated the desire for some students to live with students of a different gender for a variety of reasons, including the desire to room with siblings, romantic partners or those who are simply close friends. Some universities report that they saw an increase in attendance after switching some of their halls to coed spaces, but this has not
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been the case at Oregon State. At Tech, Kenneth Belcher is the associate director for occupancy management. He tries to keep up with the activities of other colleges and universities and notes that this is not necessarily as new of an idea as many may think. “Of course, this policy is not something brand new; it has been implemented at a small handful of other schools years before,” Belcher said. “However, this is one of the first institutions not considered to be ‘highly liberal’ that I am aware of in making such a change.” In residence halls such as Peddrew-Yates, West AmblerJohnston and Lee, coed housing is an option. However, gender-neutral housing is not expected to make its way to Blacksburg anytime soon. Currently, Tech follows the expectations of the Commonwealth and the school’s own Board of Visitors. At this time, the housing office does not have any plans to provide coed housing within individual rooms as has been implemented at Chicago. “We do have coed housing on campus, by floor, wing, or such,” Belcher said. “However, we are acutely aware of the address of our institution. With the environment in Virginia and our being a state school, such a concept is really ‘off the table’ for many years to come. Beyond casual review, such a policy change is not being studied … I don’t see a change in this policy in the foreseeable future without significant changes in the socio-political structure of the Commonwealth.”