MS. REBECCA ROBERTSFrom WAMU 88.5, at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your community with the world. I'm Rebecca Roberts, sitting in for Kojo. Coming this hour, it was called an intimate revolution on campus back in 1970 when Life magazine reported on a radical experiment being tested at Oberlin College, co-ed dormitories, allowing young men and women to live in the same building.

MS. REBECCA ROBERTSToday, of course, that revolution is old news. Ninety percent of dormitories on campus are co-ed. But some colleges are beginning to rethink the old assumptions about university housing and the ways it influences campus culture. Next year, George Washington University students will be able to opt for gender-neutral housing, which effectively means co-ed housing within rooms and campus apartments.

MS. REBECCA ROBERTSMeanwhile, Catholic University is taking the other direction, bringing back single-sex housing across the board, a way to combat, what its president calls, a culture of reckless drinking and hooking up. This hour, we're considering how university housing policies influence campus culture. And here to discuss it from George Washington University is Michael Komo.

MS. REBECCA ROBERTSHe's president of Allied in Pride, which is a student organization focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. He was the leader of the campaign to allow gender-neutral housing options. Welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show."

MR. MICHAEL KOMOThanks, Rebecca. It's a pleasure to be here.

ROBERTSAnd by phone from North Carolina, Regina Conley, she's editor-in-chief of The Tower, which is the student newspaper at Catholic University. Regina, welcome to you.

MS. REGINA CONLEYWell, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you.

ROBERTSAnd, of course, you all can join the conversation. If you have opinions about how housing situations on campus focus campus life and how far universities should go to dictate the behavior of their students, give us a call, 800-433-8850. Email us, kojo@wamu.org. You can also get in touch with us through our Facebook page or send us a tweet to @kojoshow.

ROBERTSMichael Komo, I want to start with you because this phrase gender-neutral housing is not particularly intuitive. It doesn't necessarily tell people what it means. What is this option that incoming GWU students will have?

KOMOSure. Well, gender-neutral housing is an opportunity in housing for students of any gender to live with the students they feel most comfortable. Whether that be men or women or transgender folks, it's going to be an opportunity for folks to be in a housing situation that they choose to be in, rather than being assigned to a particular gender with which they have to live.

ROBERTSAnd so is this the kind of thing that incoming freshmen check off what sort of situation they want? Or do you apply to be roommates with someone you already know?

KOMOIt's an opt-in program. And so it's for students who know particular students. So a random man cannot just live with a random woman. You know, Michael Komo would have to specifically request to live with his friend Jen Goldstein, and both parties would have to match. So it's an opportunity for all students, freshmen through seniors, to live in this environment.

ROBERTSAnd GWU also has dorms that are co-ed by room, dorms that are single-sex, so it's just another option?

KOMOThat's correct. We want to maintain traditional housing for those folks who have those special needs, just like the folks under neutral housing have special needs. So we have three dormitories that will remain single-sex and a lot of dormitories that will remain co-ed dorms, and we will also have co-ed rooms. So folks will be able to choose any sort of opportunity they want.

ROBERTSAnd why make the change? What was important about that to you?

KOMOWell, you know, we listen to a lot of students' concerns, specifically to the LGBT community. Students often feel more comfortable living with students of a different gender rather than living with students of the same gender. So we really polled all the students on campus. We got student organizations involved. You know, we wanted to have an opportunity for transgender students to be properly housed because they weren't really being properly housed before.

KOMOAnd we also want to open it up to all students just to have friends of a different gender who would be more comfortable. So we're really happy with the progress, and we think it's going to be very successful this fall.

ROBERTSAnd, Regina Conley, at Catholic, it's a different trend. The president there has announced that the incoming freshmen class will be required to live in single-sex dorms and will continue to make that change for each class as this incoming class gets older and older. Can you describe what was behind that decision?

CONLEYWell, I think this is a brilliant move by President Garvey from both a PR perspective and an identity perspective as a Catholic university. Part of being a Catholic university is that we are not -- that shouldn't be looked at as the same as other public or private nonaffiliated institutions. We have a Catholic identity, and that's something that President Garvey really wants to make sure students know.

CONLEYWhen they are applying to Catholic University, they are going to get a distinct, specifically Catholic experience. And having single-sex dorms is something that sets Catholic apart as a distinctly Catholic school. Now, this will only apply to incoming students -- so the class of 2015 -- and will be graduated through a system where the freshmen -- the incoming class of 2015 will not be able to have the option of having non-single-sex dorms.

CONLEYBut no students that are currently on campus will be affected. So the upper classmen housing will stay co-ed.

ROBERTSBut the idea is that, by 2015, when this incoming class graduates, the entire campus will be single-sex dorms?

CONLEYExactly.

ROBERTSAnd what has the reaction been on campus?

CONLEYThere's a mixed bag. I would say that there's a lot of students who say that, for a variety of reasons, this is something that would have hampered their decision to choose Catholic if they had known this ahead of time or if they -- if this was going to be applied to them. But I see a lot of support for it and a lot of people that say, yes, this is what I chose Catholic University for because I want a different experience.

CONLEYAnd I'm glad that President Garvey sees Catholic as a different place to be.

ROBERTSNow, when President Garvey made this announcement, he specifically said that it was to combat a culture of reckless drinking and hooking up. And to get a little bit deeper into this idea of the relationship between housing policy and campus culture and whether or not they can influence each other, let's add to this conversation Brian Willoughby. He's a visiting professor at the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. Welcome to you.

PROF. BRIAN WILLOUGHBYGood to be here.

ROBERTSAnd, also, David Anderson -- he's here in studio -- professor of education and human development and director of the Center for Advancement of Public Health at George Mason University. He's also, earlier in career, actually run some residence halls at universities. Welcome to you.

PROF. DAVID S. ANDERSONThank you. Delighted to be here.

ROBERTSBrian Willoughby, you have actually done a study that did find a correlation, which is obviously different from a causative relationship, between co-ed housing and reckless behavior. Can you describe your findings?

WILLOUGHBYYeah, basically, what we were looking at is -- there was a history in some studies looking at college student drinking and risk-taking behavior, finding a correlation, like you said, between resident hall and outcomes for the students. And so we wanted to replicate those findings. Obviously, that's an important element of scholarship and research, to see if we can keep finding that trend.

WILLOUGHBYAnd, also, in the study I did, we really wanted to tackle this issue of selection. One of the issues with this line of research has been it's hard to figure out, do we see higher rates of binge drinking, sexual behavior in students that live in co-ed dorms simply because those students that are choosing to live in co-ed dorms are more likely to binge drink, more likely to have more sexual partners to begin with anyway?

WILLOUGHBYAnd so we wanted to see if we could tackle that in this particular study. And so we looked at college students across five universities that we sampled, looking at the students that lived in co-ed dorms versus those that lived in single-sex dorms and focused on binge drinking, alcohol consumption and then sexual partners.

WILLOUGHBYAnd what we did find was that the students that were living in co-ed dorms were reporting higher rates of binge drinking, higher rates of sexual activity. And that was after we were able to control for things like religiosity and race and gender and several other background factors that might cause some selection.

WILLOUGHBYWe also looked at things like extroversion, impulsivity to see if more impulsive students, more extroverted students, students with mental health issues, depression were more likely to choose one hall -- co-ed hall versus same-sex hall. And we didn't find any differences there. And so, really, what the study what we were doing is kind of replicating, extending previous findings that showed that there was a correlation, at least -- and, like you said, we want to be careful about the wording here -- a correlation between the students living in co-ed housing in terms of their drinking and sexual behavior.

ROBERTSSo when someone like President John Garvey at Catholic says overtly that he thinks the move to single-sex dorms will cut down on some of that reckless behavior that you talked about in your study, what's your reaction to that?

WILLOUGHBYMy reaction is we don't really know. I -- when I set out to do this study and other studies I've done in this area, my big hope was that what this would do, would spur discussion in a more stringent look at policy at universities. I published another study -- you talked earlier in the show about 90 percent of housing being co-ed.

WILLOUGHBYAnd that came from an earlier study that I did where I looked out in the scholarship and housing and realized that no one had really documented the changes that had been happening in the United States around policy. We kind of knew that co-ed housing had been happening in the '60s and '70s, and that it was pretty normal today. But no one had really tracked those changes, what was happening, why it was happening.

WILLOUGHBYAnd I did an original study, talking to housing directors across the country, talking to the biggest universities across the country. And one of the things I found in that research was that the changes that were happening were being done with very little to no evaluation on the university's point -- from the university's standpoint.

WILLOUGHBYAnd so I encouraged, in that article and in the other article we were just talking about, that universities should make policy decisions based on evaluation, whether it be empirical research, whether it be their own evaluation. And so to Catholic University's decision, I think, at this point, we don't really know if those claims are going to hold up, if transitioning back to single-sex dorms will lower drinking rates, will lower sexual behaviors or if they will have other consequences.

WILLOUGHBYYou know, one of the other things we do know is that men in single-sex dorms tend to have higher rates of vandalism. When they live together, when you put guys together, they tend to wreck stuff more than if they're with women. And so there might be some positive changes. There might be some negative changes. There might not be any changes at all. The key, for me, is to make sure we're evaluating those changes. And so...

ROBERTSWell, let's turn this out to our audience and ask them. What do you think the influence of housing might be on behavior on college campuses? And is it the college's role to try to dictate or change or direct those behaviors and to what degree? The number here to join us is 800-433-8850, or you can send email, kojo@wamu.org. David Anderson, I want to get you in here because you've been studying why kids make reckless decisions.

ROBERTSAnd what's your sense of the relationship between housing decisions and some of this campus culture?

ANDERSONWell, even though I have a housing background -- and that's 25 years ago -- I think Prof. Willoughby has stated that well, that what he's trying to do is spark a discussion and try to help us better understand, from an evaluative point of view, the extent to which housing does affect heavy drinking. It's my sense when we heard about the Catholic University decision -- and I shared that with colleagues around the state of Virginia.

ANDERSONWe have an annual retreat, and 25 colleges were gathered. And we talked about this. And it's my experience and my colleagues' experience that having single-sex residence halls is not going to help the heavy drinking. What my colleagues, again, around the state of Virginia have said is the co-ed halls seem to have a moderating effect, at least on the male behavior.

ANDERSONSo you put men and women together, and the men at least have less extreme drinking behavior. So -- but, I think, Prof. Willoughby's comment of let's have better evaluation data, let's look at what it is that's influencing the heavy drinking. So I don't think it's a simple as a residence hall decision.

ROBERTSWell, you've...

ANDERSONIt's very complicated.

ROBERTSI mean, you've looked at that...

ANDERSONAbsolutely.

ROBERTS...about what's causing the heavy drinking and...

ANDERSONAbsolutely.

ROBERTS...the answer does seem to be it's complicated.

ANDERSONYeah, and a colleague and I have tracked what colleges are doing over the last 30 years. We've been tracking policies and programs. And I think the key question you asked is, is it appropriate for a college to dictate student behavior? I think the word dictate student behavior -- and I don't know how Michael feels -- but I don't believe that dictating the behavior has the impact that we want to have.

ANDERSONWhat we want to do, I think, is understand why students are engaging in heavy drinking and drugging behavior. And the tracking that my colleague, Angelo Gadaleto, and I have done with this college alcohol survey is showing that colleges are doing more in terms of policies. They're basically tightening the lid. While they're not changing whether alcohol is allowed on campus, they are changing circumstances.

ANDERSONSo we have alternative beverages. We have food present. We have trained servers. But to go to right -- one to -- one of Prof. Willoughby's points, colleges today are still not evaluating the effectiveness of their program. Our latest data shows 47 percent have done an evaluation, have even looked at -- and we're not even saying, are you doing a systematic controlled group study. No.

ANDERSONAre they doing any kind of evaluation of the effectiveness of their program? So, while colleges are doing more, bottom line is we're still not getting at the root causes of the students' heavy drinking, drugging, other risk-taking behaviors. We're really not getting at what's really underneath that. I have some suggestions on that, but I'll hold those.

ROBERTSWell, let's take a quick call from Emily in Washington, D.C. Emily, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show." Hey, Emily, you're on the air.

EMILYHi. Sorry. I have a question about the new rules that will be at Catholic University. I, myself, also graduated from a different Catholic university, where dorms were separated. And you were fined if you tried to bring in a guest of the opposite sex. So that means if my brother came to visit, if my boyfriend of two years came to visit and wanted to sleep over, he would be fined.

EMILYAnd I want to know, number one, is Catholic going to have any of these similar punishments? And, number two, is there any kind of worry about taking away the ability of young adults to make decisions for themselves, sometimes mature decisions, not reckless decisions? Thanks.

ROBERTSWell, let's start with Regina Conley at Catholic. Do you know the answer to the question about fines or punishment?

CONLEYSure. Well, currently, it is not allowed, as you said correctly, that friends of the opposite sex or a brother or a boyfriend or something could come and stay in your room. It's against university policy. We have some strict rules about -- even time limits that members of the opposite sex can be in each other's rooms. And we haven't heard anything yet on whether those things are actually going to be changed.

CONLEYOnce we move to single-sex dorms, currently the rules are, in the weekends, men have to be out of women's rooms by midnight, and on the weekends, by 2 a.m. And I don't see that changing.

ROBERTSAnd this broader question about whether or not college is a time for students to learn how to make some of these bigger decisions for themselves and how much the university should be getting involved with that, I think, is a conversation we want to continue. But we need to take a quick break. So we will take your calls.

ROBERTSAnd we will continue this conversation with Regina Conley at Catholic, Michael Komo from George Washington -- he's here in studio -- Brian Willoughby at Brigham Young University and David Anderson here in studio from George Mason University. I'm Rebecca Roberts, sitting in for Kojo Nnamdi. Stay tuned.

ROBERTSWelcome back. I'm Rebecca Roberts, sitting in for Kojo Nnamdi. We are talking about campus housing and campus culture in wake of the decisions by two local universities, George Washington University, to include gender-neutral housing, where students -- female and male students can choose to live in the same room, and Catholic University's decision to have their incoming freshman class live entirely in single-sex dormitories.

ROBERTSI'm joined by Regina Conley, who's editor-in-chief of the student newspaper at Catholic, Michael Komo, who's president of Allied and Pride at George Washington University, Brian Willoughby, a visiting professor at the School of Family Life at Brigham Young, and David Anderson, a professor of Education in Human Development and director of Center for Advancement of Public Health at George Mason University.

ROBERTSAnd, of course, you can join us, 800-433-8850, or send us email, kojo@wamu.org. You can also get in touch with us through our Facebook page, or send us a tweet to @kojoshow. Let's take a call from Jeremy in Fairfax, Va. Jeremy, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show."

JEREMYThanks for having me. My daughter went to Oberlin College, which you mentioned was the first school to go mixed-sex dorms. And what she found was that the same-sex dorms -- 'cause there's still some same-sex as well as mixed-sex. She found that the same-sex dorms tended to attract more gay and lesbian students, while the mixed-sex dorms tended to attract more heterosexual students.

JEREMYI'm wondering if there's any statistics to back that up. And, if so, would that make Catholic a more appealing university for gay and lesbian students?

ROBERTSThat's an interesting question. Let's start with you, Michael Komo. I mean, also, there might be a difference men and women here in this decision that often, you know -- anyway, there are different cultural attachments, too, depending on where you are in coming out and how -- you know, how comfortable you are with all of that. But what has been your experience at GW?

KOMOWell, we did a lot of research nationwide at all the schools and universities that offer gender-neutral housing. There are about 60 currently, including all of the Ivy League schools, New York University, Stanford University, Washington University in St. Louis. And what we found from those 60 schools is that LGBT students usually feel more comfortable with living with someone of a different gender.

KOMOAnd we actually polled the students at George Washington University this year. We brought in parents, students, staff, alumni, and those folks also said, if they did identify as LGBT, that they would be more comfortable with living with someone of a different gender. So it is my belief and my understanding from the schools that have implemented this that LGBT students usually opt into the program.

KOMOSo, you know, for instance, a gay man would we be living with a female, straight friend. You know, pairings like that would happen on campus. And we've actually had a pilot program at GW for the past three years. We've had a Living and Learning Cohort that has been gender-neutral. And I believe all but one, every year, the students have been LGBT that have identified to live in that option.

KOMOBut that was only six students, and that was our guinea pig for the program. And...

ROBERTSMm hmm.

KOMO...after three years of success with that, we wanted to implement, you know, a university-wide program. So I think that LGBT students will participate in very high numbers in gender-neutral housing to accommodate those needs.

ROBERTSYou know, Regina Conley said that this was a smart marketing plan on the part of Catholic, that it was defining its campus culture in a way that might attract students who specifically choose that way to live. Is there a similar vein going on at GW, that they are trying to characterize themselves as particularly progressive on these issues?

KOMOAbsolutely. You know, with the schools that have done it, it's been a lot of progressive schools. And, you know, we want to show the country that we are accepting of all students, gay, straight, doesn't matter. You know, we're here to accommodate your needs. So if you want to remain in single-sex dorms, you can do that. If you want to live in opposite-sex rooms, you can do that.

KOMOYou know, we really want to offer housing opportunities that meet the needs of every single student on campus. And I think that publicity will, you know, be known nationwide, that GW is providing such an inclusive environment for all students. So, you know, I'm thrilled. The campus is thrilled. We had about 20 student organizations endorse this. And, you know, it's been a really positive reception on campus.

KOMOWe have about 200 students who are living in gender-neutral housing this fall.

ROBERTSAnd, Brian Willoughby, you know, about the sort of broader issue of the campus as parent, the in loco parentis tradition, you know, all -- we did find this sort of fabulously dated 1970 article about Oberlin doing co-ed dorms. And a lot of that article talked about the university backing off as a parent, that the decision to take over the role of parents when a student came to campus was no longer necessarily a primary role in a college campus.

ROBERTSHow has that been trending from your point of view? And are -- is there a re-think of the in loco parentis role?

WILLOUGHBYYeah, it has definitely been trending in that direction since the '60s and '70s. This decline in this idea of in loco parentis, where when kids leave their families, that the university kind of takes on this surrogate parent role, has definitely been declining, intentionally in a lot of ways on the universities' part as the universities and the policies they've been implementing in housing and other areas have taken more of a hands-off approach lately.

WILLOUGHBYThere are some exceptions, primarily religious institutes, private universities, in some cases, still have some of these elements of in loco parentis, which are, traditionally, things like curfews and more stringent rules around drinking behavior, single-sex dorms, et cetera. But we definitely have seen a large-scale pullback from most universities in terms of being involved in their students' lives and dictating behavior -- that word we used earlier.

WILLOUGHBYI think the key though to keep in mind is that although most universities will say, you know, we don't want to tell students what to do, we don't want to dictate their lives, we want them to make independent, adult decisions, the policies they implement still have an effect, the housing policies, the food service policies, policies around classes.

WILLOUGHBYAll of these things still have a potential impact on the students, regardless if the universities want that effect to be to there. And so even though the cultural shift has been for universities to take a step back, there is still the sense that a lot of these policies are still going to have an indirect effect on their student behavior.

ROBERTSWe have a comment from Jonathan on our website. He says, "I attended Catholic University in the mid-'90s in a single-sex dorm. This rule will not make any difference in reckless behavior. The dorms use students to watch the desk, and they do not stay on duty all night. And the lack of alcohol resulted in students drinking off-campus in the dangerous neighborhood around Catholic." Regina Conley, what do you say to Jonathan?

CONLEYWell, I would say that I am not an expert in college behavior research...

ROBERTSYeah, I'm not trying to make you answer for the entire Catholic student body. I'm just wondering what the culture is there now.

CONLEYWell, I mean, I can't tell you statistically that single-sex dorms are going to significantly lessen sex and drinking. But, I mean, there is a common sense factor that tells me that having single-sex dorms cannot possibly make the problem worse. And it could possibly make it better. So, to me, it's a slam-dunk, that you give it a shot.

CONLEYAnd especially here, as -- because it's such a brilliant PR move, I think it's a really -- even if it's just for that purpose alone, I think it's a good move by the university.

KOMORegina, I had a question for you. I read the article from the president of Catholic University. And it stated that, you know, the goals were to reduce binge drinking, reduce casual sex. I assume that means heterosexual sex. How does Catholic University plan to reduce casual sex among same-sex couples or gay students? Because in single-sex dorms, you know, technically, I suppose, same-sex couples could live together.

KOMOI don't think they would, but how -- what does Catholic plan to do to reduce same-sex sex?

CONLEYWell, all sexual behavior, regardless of whether it's heterosexual or homosexual, is banned by the university -- pre-marital sexual behavior. And any homosexual person that comes to CUA already has to be okay with the fact that engaging in homosexual behavior is not something that's supported by Catholic teachings. We don't support clubs or groups that support homosexual behavior.

CONLEYAnd so, already, that's sort of a impetus in that direction. Now, there's no -- this is not a big enough issue that, I think, it really needs to -- that President Garvey feels that that needs to be tackled. I think the binge drinking, especially, and -- meets with what President Garvey wants to tackle. And he also wants to tackle Catholic University's identity and their place in the spectrum of private colleges in the United States.

CONLEYAnd that's what he's looking at, not more specifically trying to regulate behavior.

ROBERTSDavid Anderson.

ANDERSONYou know, Regina -- and I applaud your president's desire to deal with the high risk -- or many people call it binge drinking -- that has been out of control. And, bluntly, on our college campuses nationally, if we look at this, and it's a federally funded study done by the University of Michigan, the high-risk drinking has not changed in 30 years. So what your president is trying to do, I think, is great.

ANDERSONAnd it points to the fact that locally appropriate options -- you know, just across town, you know, GW and Catholic University are doing very different things for different reasons, locally appropriate approaches to deal with this high-risk drinking. If we really want to tackle it, we can. And I think that, from what we've seen in our research and what we've seen from our experiences, is that there's a lot of strategies.

ANDERSONBut, bluntly, campuses are doing is, I think, as little as they can to address the high-risk drinking. You know, we just finished -- a colleague at Mason and I just finished a study with teens, and it was focusing on high schools. And we call it the -- you know, the culture -- Understanding Teen Drinking Cultures in America. And, very honestly, if you look at the -- again, at the national data, the high school seniors are engaged in more drug use than our college students.

ANDERSONYou know, the behavior is established before they get to college. And so we're dealing with a cultural issue that's high school-based, that's culturally based, that's institution, different campus cultures, and it's a mammoth, mammoth job to deal with. And, again, I applaud, Regina, your president's one strategy among many to address this.

ROBERTSAnd I know this sounds facile, but is some of this that teenagers take risks?

ANDERSONAbsolutely.

ROBERTSYou know, it's part of learning how to be an adult.

ANDERSONAbsolutely.

ROBERTSIt's part of separating yourself from your parents.

ANDERSONAbsolutely. Yeah, and so, again, part of the study -- it was funded by the Century Council. And part of the study was, what messages do you hear? We're talking with teenagers across the country, 1,600 teens and parents. And the messages that they're hearing go back to the beginning of this show. It's about the dictation that they're hearing. They're hearing, don't do it. Don't drink. It's against the law. It's bad for you.

ANDERSONAnd don't drink and drive. They're hearing, don't, don't, don't. And what they're not hearing and what we're ill-preparing our young people for is making responsible choices, giving them the tools. I mean, it's not the one hour on alcohol or drug information that they get in ninth grade. How do we infuse that into healthy decisions about all these issues? Alcohol, drugs, unsafe sex, casual sex, relationships, how do we infuse that?

ANDERSONAnd those are hard discussions. But that's something, I think, we -- again, this may be calling the question of how we can deal with this better as a society within the individual campuses, our schools, our communities and our nation.

ROBERTSLet's take a call from Keith in Washington, D.C. Keith, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show."

KEITHOh, hi. Thanks. It seems to me that part of what you're getting at repeatedly is that we don't necessarily understand the effects of a lot these policies and the value of studies and evaluations. And I'm wondering, you know, sort of separate from the PR value, proclaiming one of these policies in a given situation.

KEITHI'm wondering to what degree has -- are the Catholics thought about how to set up evaluative procedures, you know, establishing baselines or getting data or whatever it is to understand the long-term effects or the values of policy, and I guess any other thoughts about how to do that effectively.

ROBERTSKeith, thanks for your call. And I think that both Brian Willoughby and David Anderson are applauding your desire for evaluation and...

WILLOUGHBYAbsolutely.

ANDERSONAbsolutely.

ROBERTS...some sort of quantitative measure of this. Brian Willoughby, let me turn this to you 'cause, also, interestingly, you're in an environment at Brigham Young that is also very defined by a religious moral code. I don't know how the housing is there at Brigham Young. But is there any sense of trying to track how a different housing culture would influence some of these risk-taking behaviors?

WILLOUGHBYYeah, I'm not aware of exactly what Catholic University is planning on doing in terms of evaluation. I do hope they're planning on doing something. And I think that goes both ways. You know, talking about Catholic University and George Washington, is I hope both of those universities are hoping to do evaluation and not just an evaluation of, do the students like what we're doing, but how is it affecting academics, how is affecting drinking, how is it affecting several aspects of student life.

WILLOUGHBYI do think that that's very important. And we do need more of that. It's something that's, frankly, just not happening. Something that David mentioned earlier about him and his colleagues talking about, you know, in their sense, being around housing environments, that co-ed dorms have a monitoring effect in the males.

WILLOUGHBYThat's a very a common thing I heard across the country from housing directors, that, you know, we put men and women in the same building, and they calm each other, they get to know each other better. I don't know if that's the case, but I'd love to see a study that actually shows 'cause, right now, we have absolutely no empirical evidence about if that's true or not.

WILLOUGHBYAnd so we really have almost no research bases for these type of decisions, even though they're widespread and they're happening constantly. I currently have a paper that should be coming out soon on gender-neutral housing specifically, where I did kind of a similar analysis across the country of what's happening and noted that the same trend that happened 50 years ago with co-ed housing, where that transition took place with very little evaluation, is starting to happen again with gender-neutral housing.

WILLOUGHBYI found that about 40 percent, now, of the largest 100 universities in the country by enrollment are either -- already have gender-neutral housing or are considering doing it. But none of those universities could tell me of a single evaluation that they had done about the study or about the policy changes.

ROBERTSDavid Anderson.

ANDERSONYeah, and I think that, just broadening that a little bit, quantitative data, again, at GW, at Catholic, at other schools, would be very, very helpful. Qualitative should not be underestimated. When we did our teen drinking study over the last couple years, one of the unique features of our study was talking with teens, talking with teens about their experiences.

ANDERSONWhen we did our literature review, we found zero articles in this -- published in this nation in the last five years, zero, talking with -- or that involved talking with teens. It's the paper and pencil test. That's not sufficient. Let's get inside the teens' and, for this discussion here, the college students' mind and into their hearts. Let's try to understand what their experiences are and get at some of the root causes of why they're engaging the way they are.

ANDERSONAnd that helps us to understand, which helps us then to program, do policies, do whatever is appropriate, to have our campuses be what we say they are in our individual mission statements, you know, living and learning and healthy environments.

ROBERTSWe are going to need to take a quick break here. But we will continue our conversation about college housing and college culture coming up after this break. You can join us at 800-433-8850. Or send us email, kojo@wamu.org. I'm Rebecca Roberts, sitting in for Kojo Nnamdi. We'll be back after this quick break.

ROBERTSWelcome back. I'm Rebecca Roberts, sitting in for Kojo Nnamdi. We are talking about campus culture in light of some disparate housing decisions on local campuses: Catholic University, which is going to single-sex dorms, and George Washington University, which is going to allow gender-neutral rooming. We're joined by Regina Conley, editor-in-chief of The Tower, which is the student newspaper at Catholic, and Michael Komo, who's president of Allied in Pride at George Washington University.

ROBERTSWe also have Brian Willoughby, he's a visiting professor at the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, and David Anderson, professor of education and human development and director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Health at George Mason University. And, of course, we hope we have you, 800-433-8850. Or send us email, kojo@wamu.org.

ROBERTSMichael Komo, when the conversation about adding gender-neutral housing to GW came up, there were some conservative groups on campus who said, we'll, what happens if it's a couple that's living together and they break up and they want to transfer to another room? And we have an email from Donna, who says, "I speak with a certain degree of humor for adults who have lived most of their lives with a (word?) of boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands or wives.

ROBERTS"It's a relief to know I had one time in my life when I didn't have to live with a partner. It's hard for the young to realize what a privilege it is to have this form of freedom. It doesn't mean you don't have a close relationship with someone you love. It just gives them an opportunity during early adulthood to have some freedom they may never have again."

ROBERTSWhen you were asking questions around campus and talking to people about making this change, what was your impression of the couple question?

KOMOYes. Everyone was on the same page -- gay, straight, it didn't matter. Couples do not want to live together. You know, I have been the president of Allied in Pride for over three years now. And I'm not going to say that I know every gay person on campus, but I'm very familiar with the gay community. And I've never, in four years at GW, heard of a gay couple living together. I know that I, personally, would never live with a boyfriend.

KOMOAnd, you know, same-sex couples have made those wise decisions. And I know that opposite-sex couples will make those same wise decisions. And from the schools that we asked -- you know, the schools I mentioned earlier, the Ivy League schools, Stanford, NYU, Washington and St. Louis -- you know, we did a lot of research, and we asked the schools, is this a problem? And those schools either said, no, or it happens less than 1 percent of the time.

KOMOAnd these were from testimonials from the folks that we talked with in housing at those colleges and universities. And, you know, it's our belief that there will be so many less roommate transfers because gay students and whoever else decides to opt in will be in a comfortable living environment, so they won't have to transfer out of a roommate situation that they didn't want to be in, in the first place.

KOMOSo it's our belief that, you know, we will see a reduction in roommate transfers. But, you know, if that does happen, and if a straight couple decides to live together, they would be able to, you know, opt out and switch roommates, just like two men or two women would be able to if they got in a fight, you know, if they were friends or if they were acquaintances. So it's our belief that, you know, this is really going to be a better policy for the majority of students on campus.

ROBERTSLet's take a call from Carolina in Arlington. Carolina, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show."

CAROLINAHi. Thank you. I wanted to add my two cents to the show, in part, because I am a recent college graduate -- from 2008, but still recent. And I went to Loyola College in Maryland, which is now called Loyola University Maryland. And we had a really vibrant, really active gay club and just allied club. But we didn't have gender-neutral housing, which I really wish that we did. We had a sort of living situation that was like suites.

CAROLINASo the dorms were kind of like mini-apartments. So, like, in one little house, we would have, you know, every one has their own dorm, so you would have your own -- like, I was a girl, so I lived with a girl. But, across the hall, you would have boys living there. But I really think that that's just a step in the right direction, not just for making comfortable living situations for heterosexuals, but also for the transgender community because they're more or less invisible to everyone.

CAROLINAAnd I know someone who -- you know, I know that she would have loved to live in a more gender-neutral area. It just makes a better environment, I think, to be able to make their own sort of adult decisions, but still have the protection of the RA down the hall or of the policies of the school. And I don't think that that gender-neutrality of the dorm rooms would mean that the morality of the school would be on a downhill, downward slope.

ROBERTSYeah, Carolina, thanks for your call. The issue of trans-students was part of the decision at GW. Michael.

KOMOAbsolutely. You know, we had a -- we have a vibrant LGBT community. And in that living and learning cohort that I spoke of, that has existed for three years, we have always had transgender students within that living and learning cohort because they've never been able to really be properly housed before, or they've never been in an environment through which they feel comfortable.

KOMOSo this will be an opportunity for cisgender, transgender students, gay students, straight students, all students to be in an environment through which they're most comfortable. So that was a big part of the decision to allow gender-neutral housing for all years at GW.

ROBERTSWe have an email from Catherine, who says, "When I went to school, almost all dorms were single-sex. I guess I was under the mistaken impression that situation was still the same. When did this transition to co-ed living happen on U.S. campuses?" Is the switch partly because colleges want to cater to whatever students want since they're paying such exorbitant prices for their education? Brian Willoughby.

WILLOUGHBYYeah, you know, it's interesting to look historically what happened with co-ed housing because there's a lot of parallels with what's currently happening with gender-neutral housing. Basically, what happened with co-ed housing is after World War II, there was an influx with the GI bill and other things happening in the country of women on campus. And a lot of these universities, you know, traditionally housing with single-sex, and they might have had one or maybe two all-female dorms.

WILLOUGHBYAnd they had just simply too many women coming to college. They didn't have anywhere to put them. And so what the university started doing was experimenting with pilot programs with one or two houses, trying co-ed housing, so they could accommodate all the women. And what they found -- and this was in the '50s, '60s, into the '70s -- was, as soon as they started implementing co-ed housing, lo and behold, all the students started requesting to live in those dorms.

WILLOUGHBYAnd so they started slowly expanding those programs over the next several decades until we get to where we kind of are now, where, you know, the vast majority, nine out of 10, 90 percent of college housing right now is co-ed. And, like I said, there's a lot of tangents here with gender-neutral housing. In this case, the LGBT communities at a lot of these campuses are kind of the population of interest with gender-neutral housing, trying to create choice, as Michael said, trying to create a safe living environment, which I think is important.

WILLOUGHBYChoice is always important for college students, is to be able to have lots of options, to have lots of choices, to be able to live in a safe community. What's happening with gender-neutral housing -- and this is some of my concern -- is that what a lot of universities are starting to do is have that option available, but now doing the same thing we do with co-ed dorms, which is expand it campus-wide and create a universal gender-neutral policy, again, without that evaluation that we talked about, again, largely driven by, well, students really like this. Students want this.

WILLOUGHBYAnd I think that what was mentioned earlier about romantic couples -- like Michael said, we don't see a lot of that right now because a lot of these programs are still new, still emerging. But I do have a lot of concern, eventually, that as these programs expand, that a lot of romantic couples will see gender-neutral housing as a cheap, affordable, basically cohabitation option for them.

WILLOUGHBYAnd, you know, my background is in relationship research. And we know that those type of relationships tend to be not very good for the couple and not very good for the individuals involved. So that's one concern I have about gender-neutral as it expands.

ROBERTSWell, there's certainly a precedent for adding choices as students get older. You know, freshmen might be required to live on campus or not allowed to have a car, or required to live only with freshmen. And then you sort of gain privilege and gain some leash as you get a little bit older. Was there any talk, Michael, about maybe limiting this to upperclassmen or transitioning it in some way?

KOMOThere was. You know, most of the schools that have gender-neutral housing right now offer it through sophomores, through seniors, and they don't allow incoming freshmen. But, you know, for us, it was simply a matter of equality. Why would we deny equality to 25 percent of our student body? And, particularly, freshmen and sophomores actually need those opportunities more because they are required to live on campus in the residence halls at George Washington.

KOMOSo the freshmen and sophomores truly need it more than the juniors and the seniors. So, like I said, we had the pilot program for three years, and that was a mix of freshmen through seniors in that pilot program, living together in the gender-neutral environment at GW. And so we're going to continue to monitor it, but it will be a specifically opt-in program, freshmen through senior. No random people will be paired together.

ROBERTSLet's hear from Phillip in Takoma Park. Phillip, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show."

PHILLIPHi. Thanks for taking my call. I'm a junior at Catholic University, having transferred in from another school -- actually, several schools. And I just finished my first year at Catholic, and I think the decision by the president was a very good one. I lived on campus for two years at a school that has single-sex dorms. And I can tell you I did not see -- it was one occasion where I saw a woman in the men's dorm. That was the only time.

PHILLIPAnd, in fact, 'cause they were enforced. And the caller who pointed out about people not manning the desk, whatever, it was enforced. Especially, it enforced single-sex dorm than co-ed floors or co-ed rooms. And the fact is that the Catholic Church does not believe -- and this is America's Catholic University -- does not believe in cohabiting or anything, any sexual activity outside of marriage.

PHILLIPSo it makes perfect sense that the Catholic University would not encourage it. The fact is, when I was in a co-ed situation with co-ed floors, we would just -- people would just take the doors open. And there were women on -- and men who were going back and forth. And so the fact is that you -- really, the only way to guarantee there aren't -- the women in the -- women in men's dorm and men in women's dorm is to have separate buildings.

PHILLIPThat's really the only sort of practical way to do it. I think it makes perfect sense that America's Catholic University is doing it.

ROBERTSAnd, Phillip, when you were choosing to transfer to Catholic, was it specifically Catholic culture part of the appeal to you?

PHILLIPAbsolutely, yes.

ROBERTSSo thanks for your call. So, Regina, this gets to what you're saying, that it helps solidify Catholic's reputation as distinct from other D.C. area schools...

CONLEYRight.

ROBERTS...for students who choose that.

CONLEYAnd I also want to respond a little bit to the point of sort of this picture of an overarching university that dictates to its students what to do. And I want to pose that that might not be such a big problem. We are not the only Catholic university in the United States, and students are very free to choose other universities. And I think there's a reason that we, college students as adults, have chosen to enter a world of academia instead of a real life situation.

CONLEYAnd we're entrusting our college to develop -- help develop our lives and help us improve as people. And so we're expecting a little bit of regulation, control, and we're willing to accept those constraints that come with it. And so I think that there should not be this free bird mentality when you go to college because that's not what college is for. And the Catholic University certainly does not want to fall into that category.

ROBERTSWell, again, I think this seems to sort of come down to what students and parents want from a school, that if that helping you grow up should include a Catholic message, then you choose a place like Catholic. If that helping you grow up means giving you broader freedom to make your -- make maybe some big mistakes, then you might choose a different environment.

ROBERTSAnd maybe this is all just a way for schools to differentiate among themselves, although there is this sort of, again, underlying issue of binge drinking, which I don't think anybody supports.

ANDERSONRight.

CONLEYRight.

ROBERTSGo ahead, Dave.

ANDERSONYeah, and I think one of the large takeaways from this is that if we want to deal with binge drinking, it's important to think long-term. It's important to think comprehensive, doing policies and programs and services and curriculum and support services to look at the culture for the students coming into the campus, for the campuses themselves -- different campuses have different cultures -- and then looking at the root causes, what's underneath all of this.

ANDERSONYou know, in Virginia, we looked at a lot of the different standards that have been promulgated by different national associations. And, bluntly, we hear them saying different things, from the nurses to the medical profession, to the police, to the administrators. And we put them all together. We took them apart and put them together and created our own standards. We have it on our website at V-A-C-A-L-C.org, vacalc.org.

ANDERSONAnd it basically says to address the high-risk drinking -- and it's not different from a lot of these other risky behaviors. To address high-risk drinking is a big job. It takes a lot out of us. It's a shared responsibility, many of us doing a lot of different things in it for the long haul, and by trying to do a quick fix -- again, no offense to a residence hall decision.

ANDERSONBut just doing a residence hall decision or just having a policy or just having a resource room does not a program make. You know, it's a tall order. And, you know, we can tackle this. And I think the variety of our campus approaches -- whether it's for the high-risk drinking or the unsafe sex -- the variety of our campus strategies, the diversity among our campuses, I think, is a good thing if we start to tackle this and really take it seriously.

ROBERTSAnd, David Anderson, you get the last word because we're out of time. David Anderson is a professor of education and human development and director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Health at George Mason University. We were also joined by Brian Willoughby, visiting professor at the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. He joined us from Provo.

ROBERTSMichael Komo is here in studio, president of Allied in Pride, a student organization at George Washington University focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. And Regina Conley, she is editor-in-chief of The Tower, the student newspaper at Catholic University. She joined us by phone from North Carolina. Thanks to all of you.

WILLOUGHBYThank you.

ANDERSONThank you.

KOMOThank you.

CONLEYThank you.

ROBERTSI'm Rebecca Roberts, sitting in for Kojo Nnamdi. Kojo will be back tomorrow, but we've got one more hour today. Stay tuned.