Until now, there were only four suites on campus in which coed groups were allowed to live. The change, announced just in time for the spring housing lottery, came at the urging of the Residential Council, a student group that advises the administration on housing policy. "The whole theory behind the housing lottery is that you get to live with your friends," says Andrew Lom '02, president of the council. "In a lot of cases your best friend is someone of the opposite sex. Why shouldn't you also be able to live with that person?"

Administrators in the office of residential life, however, didn't like the idea of male and female suitemates sharing a single bathroom. The Residential Council solved the problem by allowing coed groups to live in only those suites that have two bathrooms or that have hall bathrooms like those in traditional dorms. Each of the fifty-eight designated suites can now be chosen by all-male, all-female, or mixed groups.