I'm calling correlation equals not causation. Schools with co-ed residence halls are more likely to be state schools or fairly liberal private institutions that don't intrude on student's personal lives. Institutions with more single-sex residence halls are usually religiously based and most definitely take an interest in student's personal lives. Also, the researchers information on student's not sorting themselves out is faulty. Most institutions allow students to give preferences as to where they would like to be placed, so while students might not give single-sex housing first priority, students who want a quieter environment will say that they prefer single-sex living environments over the more raucous co-ed environments. Also, the students are sorting themselves out before they even choose on campus housing by choosing what institution they will go to. Are students who choose say BYU over the University of Ohio inherently different, yes. Are students who go to BYU over the University of Ohio more likely to live in single sex housing, oh most definitely. The study is far from reliable in this instance. Since this is my field, I have seen other research that illustrates when men at institutions that have a history of heavy drinking and destructive behaviors start living with females, destructive behaviors and heavy drinking begin to drop. This is just a bad study. #college
@Jenloveshercurves: This is not to say that liberal institutions are concerned with student's personal lives, it's just that liberal institutions believe in not telling students what to do, but working with the consequences of students actions. IE: we aren't going to tell you to not have sex, but we are going to give you information on how to avoid STD's, pregnancy and other unwanted consequences and we aren't going to tell you to not drink, but you can't drink here and if your drinking has an affect on your school work or your living environment, there will be consequences, so here is how to drink in moderation. BYU would say, if you have premarital sex or drink, we're going to kick you out. #college
@tankearae: "A student who wishes to obtain a beard exception must visit a BYU Student Health Center doctor by appointment (422.5156). The doctor will fax his recommendation. The student then needs to come to the Honor Code Office to fill out some paperwork and receive the letter allowing the growth of the beard, if approved. If a yearly beard exception is granted, a new Student ID will be issued after the beard has been fully grown, and must be renewed every year by repeating the process.
If a request is granted for a temporary or more permanent beard exception the student will be notified by the Honor Code Office; at which time the student will come into the office to complete the necessary paperwork. After completion of this process the student may then grow a full beard according the guidelines given."
I went to a catholic college with very strict single sex dorms and parietals. It didn't stop us from continually being listed as on of the top US colleges for alcohol consumption.
I agree with @bunsen honeydew - lets not jugde BYU, living within a mile radius of your best friends, without parents or real responsiblity minus the whole grades thing = party time. #college
@sonrisa86156: We may have attended the same school (is it in Indiana? Mine was). And we made parietals breaking a game, especially junior year when we had a quad with a bathroom. #college
@morninggloria: haha, i went to school in RI, but breaking parietals was definitely the norm. Boys would climb into windows and scale the sides of buildings. Ridiculous.
There was also such a double standard, girls dorms had a security guard signing in guest, but male dorms had no one, girls just had to be "out" of rooms at 1am. Girls dorms however were checked. #college
Let me do my "Corrrrellllation! Is not causaaaation!" tapdance.
There may not be selection bias at the dormitory level, but there's certainly selection bias at the university level.
Also, I am curious about whether there are an equal number of single-sex dorms; my university eliminated its last single-sex dorm very recently. Before that, there were 3 female-only dorms and no male-only dorms. So the co-ed dorms were probably higher in binge drinkers because there were more males in them (there are more women than men on most college campuses to begin with). The article says the statistical analysis 'controlled for' sex, but if there aren't many or any men in single-sex dorms, the analysis might still be flawed. #college
@SocialAnimal: It's really a horrible study. As someone whose field is higher education administration and policy, there are so, so many problems with this and I'm surprised that it was even picked up. #college
Well, kudos to the researchers for controlling for self-selection. I was all ready to start bleating "correlation does not mean causation" but they took steps to make sure that the non-drinking virgins weren't just self-selecting into single-sex housing. So evidently it really does affect people's behaviors. The sex isn't a problem (from a health standpoint, though BYU might beg to differ) so long as they're using condoms, but the binge drinking is a genuine concern. Rather than shunting students into "his" and "hers" dorms though, I think we'd be better off lowering the drinking age back to 18 so that students would be drinking in public instead of in illicit situations. #college
@theKP: Actually, the researchers didn't take into account that the students were self-selecting at the university level (students who choose to attend religious/small liberal arts colleges are inherently different than students who choose to attend public institutions). Also, as someone who works in residence life and studies higher education administration and policy, I would need to see the application and placement process for each institution because while students might not all choose to live in a single-sex environment, they are usually allowed to rank their options, this would mean that many students would rank a single sex room higher than another option which would make them different as well. I think that the researchers have not adequately looked at the problems inherent to their study. The study is inherently flawed and means nothing. So, bleat away: correlation does not equal causation. #college
Okay, cool, but can we do a study on how many people in co-ed dorms will endure horrible midlife crisis, as opposed to those in same-sex dorms? I think some people need to get a wild phase out of their system. My dad partied through his youth, and then married my mom. His big mid life crisis: he went out and bought kayaks. One for him, one for mom/me/my sister or whoever wanted to keep him company. My uncle who was on the straight and narrow all his life hit 45, left his wife, started drinking a lot and going to strip clubs and trying to buy weed off of all of his nieces and nephews at family functions.
I'm not saying this is everybody. I am saying, some people need to get it out of their system, and dorm life is a good place for that. So uhhh, can everyone just explain to college students how to not give themselves severe alcohol poisoning or an STD, and then leave them alone and stop judging? #college
@Bunsen Honeydew: heh, my father did his college partying at UW-Madison, in '68-69. he's got some awesome stories. For his midlife crisis, he bought 27 acres of land and some solar panels to run his electric golf cart. He now has a small orchard and some grape vines. (We tease him that his midlife crisis was really a Hippie Crisis) #college
@spamanda: Hahaha sounds like our dads have similar ideas. My mom always said she loved that his midlife crisis was not three years older than me and blonde, and it did not require gas. #college
@Bunsen Honeydew: Yep! My mom was like, "well, there are definitely worse things to spend $50k on." And he's lost a ton of weight by working out there every weekend, so it was a win-win. #college
In other breaking news, people in restaurants more likely to eat meals; people at parties more likely to have a good time; people who read more likely to absorb knowledge. #college
Somehow, I feel like co-ed dorms are still better than the BYU honor code which encourages your roommates to rat you out if you break it or are suspected of breaking it.
Also, I lived on a single sex floor for 2 years and that never stopped my friends and I from drinking, watching porn (we even had a porn watching event) or sleeping around. So . . . correlation, not causation? #college
@elaborate bacon (princessprissypants): Hell, I went to a women's college, and I used to keep a bucket of bottles of booze under my bed (when I was a wee first-year). Another time we went to ye olde porn shoppe and got some porn to watch en masse. And there were no boys around...perhaps we didn't do as much of the having mutiple partners thing, but the rest, certainly. #college
I lived in a co-ed dorm. The only thing I was "likely" to encounter was some dude in the laundry room wearing his LAST pair of boxers because it was the only clean thing he had. And maybe occasionally some guy passed out in the womens' showers because he drunkenly stumbled into the wrong bathroom. #college
@funnyface: Living in a coed dorm resulted in my not having sex in college. But while seeing 18-year-old guys in their natural state may not have turned me on, it did drive me to drink. #college
@andBegorrah: Come to think of it, it might have been my revulsion at the boys in the dorm that led me to date and eventually marry someone 5 years older. #college
Causation does not equal correlation. The article says 90% if dorms are co-ed. That 10% still holding out are likely in 1. single sex schools or 2. religious schools (very religious- even my Jesuit campus has coed dorms).
For the latter, well, if they want to go to a school like that odds are the students already have pretty strong beliefs regarding sex and drinking.
For the former it could be a lack of preferred partner gender or because it seems like most single sex schools are women's colleges, which you usually have to be pretty academically strong to get into. Someone who worked her ass off to get into one of the seven sisters isn't going to blow it by getting tanked constantly. #college
Woot woot! I made it on Jezebel (well... sort of). I'm the cover for 2010 (and I think Mr. November).
My wife reads this site every day (sorry girls [and gay guys] I am attached) and she was thrilled when she came across a thread about the calendar on here. When the new one comes out, I'm just wondering about how much grief I'm going to get from my family and friends... I already got a ton of it when I went to the photo shoot in December!
@nourbatta: Right. Pulling good Mormon boys away from the church for marriage to heathens is a proud tradition in the Vulcanized family. It goes back generations.
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[honorcode.byu.edu] #college
11/17/09
If a request is granted for a temporary or more permanent beard exception the student will be notified by the Honor Code Office; at which time the student will come into the office to complete the necessary paperwork. After completion of this process the student may then grow a full beard according the guidelines given."
Strict on closet cases, eh? #college
11/17/09
The funny thing is, I once worked with a BYU grad who lobbyied to get this beard restriction out of the honor code. Or so he claimed.
I'm not sure if he was gay or not though. #college
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@bowleserised: #college
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I agree with @bunsen honeydew - lets not jugde BYU, living within a mile radius of your best friends, without parents or real responsiblity minus the whole grades thing = party time. #college
11/17/09
11/17/09
There was also such a double standard, girls dorms had a security guard signing in guest, but male dorms had no one, girls just had to be "out" of rooms at 1am. Girls dorms however were checked. #college
11/17/09
11/17/09
There may not be selection bias at the dormitory level, but there's certainly selection bias at the university level.
Also, I am curious about whether there are an equal number of single-sex dorms; my university eliminated its last single-sex dorm very recently. Before that, there were 3 female-only dorms and no male-only dorms. So the co-ed dorms were probably higher in binge drinkers because there were more males in them (there are more women than men on most college campuses to begin with). The article says the statistical analysis 'controlled for' sex, but if there aren't many or any men in single-sex dorms, the analysis might still be flawed. #college
11/17/09
11/18/09
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11/17/09
I'm not saying this is everybody. I am saying, some people need to get it out of their system, and dorm life is a good place for that. So uhhh, can everyone just explain to college students how to not give themselves severe alcohol poisoning or an STD, and then leave them alone and stop judging? #college
11/17/09
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11/17/09
Also, I lived on a single sex floor for 2 years and that never stopped my friends and I from drinking, watching porn (we even had a porn watching event) or sleeping around. So . . . correlation, not causation? #college
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11/17/09
For the latter, well, if they want to go to a school like that odds are the students already have pretty strong beliefs regarding sex and drinking.
For the former it could be a lack of preferred partner gender or because it seems like most single sex schools are women's colleges, which you usually have to be pretty academically strong to get into. Someone who worked her ass off to get into one of the seven sisters isn't going to blow it by getting tanked constantly. #college
04/29/09
My wife reads this site every day (sorry girls [and gay guys] I am attached) and she was thrilled when she came across a thread about the calendar on here. When the new one comes out, I'm just wondering about how much grief I'm going to get from my family and friends... I already got a ton of it when I went to the photo shoot in December!
04/29/09
04/28/09
Unless you can corrupt them, which I spent a full four years working on while at BYU. hehehehe.
Hey, I figure they were trying hard to convert me, so why couldn't I do the same? Right? Right?
04/28/09
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