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==Description==
Anchor housing restricts the room draw to a small cluster of dorms. Houses on campus will be divided into five four clusters, each containing approximately six houses and one "anchor" house chosen to serve as the social hub of the cluster. Rising sophomores will form groups of six, and each group will be randomly assigned to a cluster. Upperclassmen will choose rooms in a lottery exclusive to their own cluster. Students remain in the same cluster throughout their time at Williams.
The housing system was formed with the following goals in mind, as presented by the CUL at two informational forums in 2004:
* '''Ability to live with friends, and have options within the system'''
There are ideas for a "House Cup" and House IM teams, cluster-associated faculty and informal faculty dinnersevents with them, designated bulletin boards in the new Baxter[[Paresky Center]], and cluster outings, but plans are not definite yet. Some students (and CUL members) have joked about whether the [http://wso.williams.edu/discuss/comments.php?DiscussionID=140 clusters will be named after the houses in the Harry Potter books]. As it turned out, the clusters ended up being named after their anchor houses, though some other sets of four names were available for voting.
The anchor houses and their associated dorms are:
* '''[[Curriercluster|Currier]]''': [[Fitch]], [[Prospect]], [[East]], [[Fayerweather]]* '''[[Dodd cluster|Dodd]]''': [[Hubbell]], Dodd Annex, [[GoodrichHouse]], [[Parsons]], [[Sewall]], Dennett[[Tyler]], Mills[[Tyler Annex]], [[Thompson]], [[Lehman]]* '''[[Spencercluster|Spencer]]''': [[Morgan]], [[West]], [[Brooks]], Gladden[[Bryant]], Carter* '''Tyler''': Tyler Annex, Thompson, Armstrong, Pratt[[Mark Hopkins]]* '''[[Wood cluster|Wood]]''': [[Perry]], [[Garfield]], [[Agard]], Bryant[[Gladden]], Mark Hopkins[[Carter]]
The houses [[ChadbourneHouse]], [[DoughtyHouse]], [[LambertHouse]], [[MilhamHouse]], [[Poker Flats]], [[Rectory]], [[Susie HopkinsHouse]], and [[Woodbridge House]] will remain (or become) [[co-op|co-ops]].
[[Dodd Annex]] will become Economics faculty offices. For the CUL's complete description of anchor housing, see the [http://www.williams.edu/resources/committees/cul/reports/2005.pdf|full proposal]. It is fairly detailed and includes a history of housing at Williams, though it perpetuates the misconception that the change from House Affiliation house affiliation to [[Free Agency agency|free agency]] was driven by the administration and was "accidental." In fact, students were freely swapping rooms well before the official switch to Free Agency, thus a de facto free agency system existed at the end of the House Affiliation period.
==History==
Anchor housing was first proposed by the 1999-2000 [[Committee on Undergraduate Life]] (CUL) under the leadership of Professor Charles Dew, a Williams alum from the time when College housing was based around fraternities. The proposed system was a bit different back then, and was finally abandoned by the 2002 CUL in favor of making discrete changes to room draw procedures: decreasing the size of pick groups from 7 to 4, implementing a blind room draw, and instituting gender caps on individual houses. The reason There are a number of reasons given for this change varies depending on who you ask: 2005 CUL members claimed that the Committee of 2000 wanted to give their changes time to work, and allow time to see how the new [[House Coordinator]] system was faring; students who were on campus in 1999-2000 suggest that the student body protested the idea of anchor housing strongly enough to get convince the CUL to back down; and some student members of the 2000 CUL claim that it was their objections to anchor housing that kept the system from being implemented in spring 2003. In [[winter study|Winter Study]] 2004, news was leaked to the ''[http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=news&id=6225 Record]'' that the 2004-2005 CUL (led by Professor Will Dudley, an alum from the days when students were affiliated with one house throughout their upperclass years) was going to propose the system again. The proposed system involved creating six clusters, with houses in each cluster scattered across campus but united by a centrally located [[anchor house]]. Each Freshman [[entry]] would be associated with a cluster, and rising sophomores would join the cluster of their entry. In the [http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=news&id=6308 second article] breaking the story, [[Morton Owen Schapiro|Morty]] was quoted as saying, "It’s in the interests of the students, ultimately. The challenge is to explain why." Shortly thereafter, commentary surfaced in the ''Record'', saturated [[WSO Blogs]], and continued for some time after the initial announcement. Most of the commentary from students was very critical of the proposed change. A group of students dedicated to preventing the implementation of anchor housing and maintaining [[free agency]] housing formed the group [[Anchors Away]]. These students conducted surveys of students (in one case, they collected written opinions from almost 200 Williams students opposed to anchor housing), wrote letters to the CUL, ''Record'', and [[Trustees]], and compiled documents detailing student objections to the anchor housing proposal. Their efforts culminated in a failed campaign for the [[College Council]] co-presidency by two of their founding members.
The immediate student reaction was strong oppositionCUL finally [http://www.williamsrecord. Commentary saturated com/wr/?view=article§ion=news&id=6484 submitted] its proposal to the administration under the ''Record'' name "Williams House System" in late February 2005, and recieved the [[WSO BlogsAdministration|Administration's]] for some time after the initial announcementapproval. A group The CUL declared that its mission in the 2005-2006 academic year would consist solely of students dedicated to preventing determining how exactly the implementation of anchor housing and maintaining transition from free agency to anchor housing formed the group [[Anchors Away]]would be carried out. These students conducted surveys of students (in one case, they collected written opinions from almost 200 Williams students opposed Asserting that the decision to anchor housing), wrote letters move to the CULnew system itself ought still to be at issue, ''Record'', and [[Trustees]], and compiled documents detailing student objections to the anchor housing proposal. Their efforts culminated students in a failed campaign for Anchors Away argued that the [[College Council]] co-presidency by two of their founding membersadministration was ignoring dissenting students' opinion.
In January April 2005, the Committee on Undergraduate Life made College Council submitted a series of substiantial changes to the anchor housing proposal. Entries were detatched from clusters in favor of randomly assigning rising sophomores. This was generally regarded as an improvement by students. Additionally, the CUL determined that larger clusters would be more conducive to forming so-called genuine communities and decreased the number of clusters to five. The cluster boundaries were also redrawn to be geographically localized; each cluster, instead of comprising houses from all areas of campus, would consist of nearby houses. Also, the CUL began to refer to the new housing proposal by the name ''cluster housing'' instead of ''anchor housing'', because they felt that "anchor housing" gave too much of an impression that students would be stuck to something in their residential lives. Finally, the date of implementation was pushed back from fall 2005 to fall 2006. This move was [http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=news&id=6449 highly regarded6706 letter of opposition] by to clusters to the student bodyadminsitration. The letter makes explicit the point that anchor housing cannot be successful without support from the students.
== Etymology == Over the years, the system pushed forward to replace free agency has had many names, depending on the year and the discoursing parties. In its first years, 2001-3, Anchor Housing or Anchor Affiliation was the name given the proposed system by the CUL and used by all discussants. When the CUL of 2004-5 gave the system a serious revision it decided to push new names for it as well. In April Spring 2005, Professor Will Dudley, CUL chair, discussed the system under the name Cluster Housing or Cluster Affiliation in his visit then to [[College Council submitted a [http://www]].williamsrecord He believed that the old name was part of what held back student acceptance of the system, that it carried the poor connotation of dead weight and being "tied down.com/wr/?view=article§ion=news&id=6706 letter " The CUL report in late Spring of oppositionthat year would refer to the system as "The Williams House System," but while "Cluster Housing" had been adopted somewhat by the community at large, "Williams House System" never entered common parlance. When the movement to affiliated housing and the debate over it resumed with the next academic year, the 2005-6 CUL began referring to clusters as "Neighborhoods." Helped in part by [[Anchors Away]] , whose members refused to use the updated monikers probably partly due to clusters counter-campaigning of their own, many students continued to use the original name, "Anchor Housing." ''Record'' news articles covering the system used the adminsitrationofficial up-to-date terms as they arose, while usually also including old ones. The letter makes explicit In contrast, some disgruntled students went a step in the other direction and termed the residential system by derogatory names, one of the point most widely caught-on being ''Clusterfuck'' -- from military slang, a disastrous situation that anchor housing cannot be successful without enthusiastic support results from the studentscumulative errors of several people or groups. Also known as Charlie Foxtrot, in semi-polite company.
==Student Opinion==
* '''Loss of freedoms and choices.''' Any housing system that restricts the number of houses students can live in restricts students' choices. Given the great variety of dorms on this campus, many students believe it essential that they be at least given a chance to choose from some of the best dorms on campus. Clusters drawn by the CUL have rarely included equal numbers of "desirable" and "undesirable" houses, leaving students wondering whether members of classes after 2009 will find themselves randomly assigned to a "sucky cluster." Students also worry that they will be unable to form a housing pick group with their friends, especially with friends they make after cluster assignments have been made in their freshman spring.
* '''Social engineering.''' The attitude of the CUL and administration has been seen as very paternalistic by many students. Students are wary of attempts to ensure "diversity" in all dorms on campus. The phrase "genuine communities" has been particularly contentious among students, as some believe it suggests that existing communities were judged by the CUL and determined to be "not genuine."
* '''Freshman affiliations.''' The assignment of entries to particular clusters was met with strong disapproval by students worried that new students' housing choices would be determined entirely by their entry assignment, before they even set foot on campus. FortunatelyHowever, the CUL altered this aspect of the plan.* '''Loss of "class" living experiences.''' Sophomores will no longer be able to live as a class in [[Mission Park]], and juniors will no longer be able to live together in the [[Greylock Quad]]. Some credit the Mission Park renovations in the summer of 2003 as dramatically improving the Williams sophomore experience, and are concerned that anchor housing will take away the benefits of living as a class with all the people who got to know one another as entrymates during freshman year. The shift of first-year students to Mission Park will restore some of the benefits of the Mission "class living experience."
* '''Disregard of suite affiliations.''' Many Williams students live with the same (or a similar) set of friends in a suite throughout their career. Students believe that the CUL did not take into account strong "suite identity" and the smaller, more tightly knit communities of two or three nearby suites, often composed of good friends who enjoy each others' company.
* '''Differences in social behavior.''' The drinking culture on this campus appeals to some and not to others. Some of the less party-prone students worried that anchor housing would spread them thinly around campus, sandwiching them between students more interested in trashing common rooms with [[beirut]] refuse than using the common room for a quiet gathering, board game, impromptu poker night, or movie viewing.
* '''The Odd Quad.''' Members of the [[Odd quad | Odd Quad]] (officially known as the Berkshire Quad to the uninitiated and CUL members) community use the dorms Currier and Fitch as a social hub. These students, self-described [[deviants]], are often set apart from the rest of campus culture. Without a physical social base, they worry that their way of life will be severely disrupted. Anchor housing will randomly spread these students around the entire campus, effectively destroying the Odd Quad as a cohesive community. CUL members responded that the Odd Quad is a perfect example of "theme housing" and should not, in fact, exist as a residential community.
* '''Failure of clusters at Middlebury.''' Middlebury College [http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=news&id=6393 recently implemented a cluster-model housing system], and students there have a low opinion of it. In fact, their objections are very similar to Williams students' objections to anchor housing: social engineering, preventing them from living with friends, et cetera.
* 13% are undecided
However, the Committee on Undergraduate Life made statements to the effect that a student opinion poll would not affect their decision. The 2005-2006 CUL has singlemindedly dedicated intself itself to implementing anchor housing in fall 2006. The implementation of anchor housing is now considered a moot point (in fact, indications are that anchor housing was destined to be implemented right from the beginning, when the administration voiced approval to it in its infancy), though some students push for a modified cluster system that preserves some elements of free agency.
== Current Status ==
The [http://www.williams.edu/resources/committees/cul/members.html CUL website] currently contains a member list, links to previous CUL reports, and a feedback form. There are also minutes from some of the subcommittee meetings. In addition, there is a CUL listserv maintained by WSO: <email>cul@wso.williams.edu</email>. Students are encouraged to send feedback, comments, and suggestions to the CUL via the web form or , this e-mail address, or by editing [[Stuff the CUL should do]].