I accessed the Daily online for the first time today. I was excited to see an article on co-ed dorms, having lived in Larch on Greene for my first two years at ISU. What disappointed me were a few comments made by students who don’t have the advantage of retrospect, nor the maturity to understand what co-ed floors and dorms really mean.

It is not ISU’s place to afford housing for couples (married students do have options); off-campus options allow students and their parents to make those choices. I remember “serious” relationships lasting only months. Nor is co-ed housing designed to allow one gender to have a peek at the other naked. It does provide an unparalled atmosphere for personal growth and a chance to enhance socialization skills in a practice world before hitting the “real world.”

I won’t say we didn’t have a lot of fun or that we didn’t party a lot. But we also studied together, ate many meals as a large group, spent hours in the lounge watching “M*A*S*H*” reruns and ignored each other in bathrobes.

What else did I take away from my two years of co-ed living? Friendships with men and women I still talk to, a better understanding of the opposite sex outside of pressures of the dating world and about 40 brothers and sisters more than I had at home. What’s the best thing that I got out of my Greene House experience? After eight years apart from my assigned big brother (freshmen were all assigned brothers or sisters), we ran into each other by chance. Just think … if I had not met this man and become friends sharing good and bad times back then, I would not have the wonderful best friend and husband that I have today!

Jean A. Davis

Ames