Reaction to randomization from the members of the BGLSA has been resoundingly negative.
Unlike the MSA and the BSA, BGLSA members say that randomization will reduce their membership and may discourage students who are questioning their sexuality from coming out of the closet.
"Randomization will pretty much spread everybody out," says BGLSA President Nadia P. Croes '98. "It won't be such a community in Adams and Dunster where people can be safe and won't have to prove themselves.
With Adams and Dunster no longer serving as the center of bisexual, gay and lesbian student life, some BGLSA members say, students will lose one of the few places on campus where students could comfortably deal with their sexuality in a community setting.
"People don't come to the BGLSA when they feel they need a community, they go when they belong to a community," says Lauren E. Hale '98, treasurer of the BGLSA. "If you're in a community of friends that are going, then you are more likely to go."
Cross says that BGLSA will become more essential, particularly for first-years.
"This isn't Brown or Berkeley," says Croes. "For people who are young or confused, we are going to be more necessary than ever."
And BGLSA members say that under these new circumstances, they will need their own resource center more than ever.
"One of the reasons we fought so hard for a resource center is that there is no place on campus to be openly gay," says Hale. "There needs to be a physical location where people can go and talk about their queerness."
Reviewing the Policy
From the current perspective, any analysis of the effects of randomization are bound to be premature.
But the reaction of many students indicates that, from their point of view, several key imperfections remain in the policy.
The system may prove to be fine, but it should remain open to revision, says Jewett, the policy's instigator.
"I don't see any evidence as of yet that certain groups are going to be particularly unhappy," he says. "But if it can be shown to be so over a period of time--say two or three years--than it can be looked at once again."