Rhode Island College (RIC) is located in the Elmwood neighborhood of Providence and home to 1,198 on-campus students. Although there are six different residence halls on campus, Weber Hall is unique with its newly revised Gender Inclusive Housing (GIH) Program.
Weber Hall is a three floor suite style residence hall that can house up to 180 students and has four Residential Assistant(RA) that live and work in the building. Three of the eighteen 10-single-room suites are reserved for RIC’s Gender Inclusive Housing Living/Learning Community (LLC). A LLC is a group of rooms/suites in close proximity to one another that offer to house students with similar interests. Weber’s LLC focuses on issues of gender, respect, and equality; offering a variety of diverse programs and meetings centered around such topics.
Gender Inclusive Housing allows students of the same or opposite gender to live together regardless of biological sex in a safe and supportive environment. The purpose of Gender Inclusive Housing is to establish a community on campus where residents feel safe and are not limited by gender distinctions. Prior to existing in Weber Hall, Gender Inclusive Housing was attempted at Penfield Hall but the limited number of rooms and a lack of community quickly became concerning. After receiving constructive feedback from students requesting more rooms and cheaper housing options, the program relocated to Weber Hall and rebooted the program. The revised LLC was a great success; originally two 10-single-room suites were reserved for the LLC during the 2018-2019 academic school year but the demand was so high that a third suite was opened and instantly filled.
Any interested student can apply for Gender Inclusive Housing. Residents will be asked to fill out an application where they share information about themselves and why they feel that GIH would be a good fit for them. Residents will then be expected to respect other members’ different motivations for choosing to live in GIH, embrace and learned more about lifestyles different from their own, and actively participate in community events. Students will need to reapply for GIH each year.
The current rate for a suite in Weber Hall is between ten to eleven thousand a year. Each single room is roughly 8 feet by 11 feet, carpeted, and is furnished with a desk, bed, closet, and wall shelf. The suite has ten single bedrooms rooms, a common living area, and two restrooms. Laundry facilities are on the ground floor below the main lounge that highlights a beautiful fireplace and flatscreen TV for residential use.
We would like to thank the staff of Weber hall and especially current Weber RA, Sam Nehila, for providing us with this information and coordinating a donation drive at the college that will benefit YPI!
