by Timothy Baldi
Staff Writer
People hear stories about the gender-differing communities built in the men’s and women’s residence halls. The guys are often labeled as video game players and women as talkers.
“The girls tend to love, love, love to talk while guys like to battle amongst each other in a video game,” said junior Resident Assistant Rachel Hewitt.
While a group of guys can gather in a room to watch one person playing a video game, girls would start talking after a couple minutes while one person played the game with a couple people watching, said junior RA Laura Pierce.
“There are ways in which guys build fellowship and there are ways girls build fellowship,” said junior RA Andrew Abercrombie.
Unlike what the stereotype would suggest, Abercrombie said that he has was surprised during the first few weeks of classes when groups of guys hung out on the hall for hours talking.
This has continued on Abercrombie’s hall throughout the semester.
Senior RA Matthew Noel said guys “don’t necessarily have to do stuff.” The guys can just sit out in the hallway talking to have fun together.
Both Abercrombie and Noel said their guys still love to play video games such as “Halo,” but Abercrombie added that some guys will also bowl 2-liter bottles at each other or be more peaceful by doing homework together on the hall floor.
Pierce said the games that the girls on her hall like to play are Apple-to-Apples, Double-Dutch Blitz and hanging out in Robinson 1st lounge.
Some of the girl halls have quote walls that they read and build together, said Pierce.
Hewitt and Pierce said that their girls enjoy group trips to Sonic, Harmony House and Amigos.
Hewitt also said her hall made and ate breakfast together in Robinson kitchen.
Pierce said, “Most of our activities involve food”
Similar to the girls, the guys like to make McDonald’s runs and go to dinner in a large group, said Abercrombie.
Another way a couple of the female halls build community is by meeting individually once or twice a week to share prayer requests with one another, said Hewitt. For most halls, the meetings started at the beginning of the semester, but some have been harder to plan as the semester gets busier.
The guys on Long 1st have also started a Bible study this week with about 10 guys attending, said Abercrombie. The guys are getting comfortable enough to share what really matters.
Most of the community built on the halls comes from spontaneous student activities rather than planned events, said Abercrombie and Pierce.