Though some residents of Columbia’s Living Learning Center appreciate its efforts to unite students of myriad backgrounds, the center disserves incoming students who are placed there involuntarily. For first-years who would prefer to live with their peers in Carman or John Jay, it is an unwelcome annoyance. For calculating sophomores, it is merely a way of avoiding bad lottery numbers. Given the persistent housing crunch, setting aside both Hartley and Wallach halls for the LLC makes poor use of desirable housing on the main quad. The administration should consolidate the center into a single building and convert the other dormitory into suite-style housing for upperclassmen.

Comprised of mostly first-years and sophomores, the LLC houses students from different years and schools in hopes of creating a distinctive learning environment for its residents. In the best of circumstances, LLC suites encourage relationships between students who might not have otherwise come into contact and provides a structured social climate for its students. But the goals of the LLC are often not realized. Each year, more than 200 incoming first-years are housed there, even though only half mark the LLC as their top priority. Residing in small suites of nine to 16, first-years commonly find the dorm socially limiting, separating them from the more vibrant corridor communities of John Jay and Carman. Despite ever more stringent application procedures, many rising sophomores apply to live in Hartley or Wallach for their single rooms alone, with little regard for the educational experience the building is intended to promote.

Reducing the Living Learning Center to a single dorm would do much to alleviate these problems. To keep all first-years on the main quad, Furnald—whose social dynamic is complicated by the presence of sophomores alongside first-years—should be occupied solely by first-years. Fostering a more cohesive first-year community would mitigate the feelings of isolation sometimes associated with living in the LLC or Furnald. John Jay, Carman, and Furnald are not quite large enough to accommodate the entire entering class, but a smaller LLC could still make up the difference. Some 100 first-years indicated the LLC as their first choice last year, and a limited application process could admit a small number of first-years who would be invested in creating a learning community. As for upperclassmen, more discerning acceptance procedures to the dorm could weed out students—especially sophomores—applying to Hartley or Wallach only as a means of securing good housing.

Such a solution would make one of the current LLC dorms available to upperclassmen in the form of attractive suite-style housing. A minor complication is that, because travel among Hartley, Wallach, and John Jay does not require swipe access, converting part of the LLC could make existing substance-free policies difficult to enforce in John Jay and the LLC. Though it might be necessary to limit alcohol privileges in the converted dorm, upperclassmen would surely consider this a small price to pay in return for better housing. It is senseless for unlucky first-years to live in the LLC against their will when suite space is in such short supply among older students. With a change in housing organization, first-years excluded from the social scenes of Carman and John Jay could find a home in a Furnald reserved for first-years, while students looking for an educational community could reside in a consolidated Living Learning Center.