Acclimating to life at a new university is very difficult for a freshman. Getting used to new classes, a new environment and growing into the role of a college student adds to the stressful time that everyone pursuing higher education has to eventually go through. However, when discussing their freshman years, students on Villanova’s campus (more specifically, POC students) tend to highlight their residential experiences.
“Socially, I struggled living in Stanford [Hall] because I was the only Black woman in my wing, so there were a lot of people that I couldn’t relate to,” sophomore Nayanna Fluellen said. “That was really difficult because sometimes conflicts would happen and I felt like they would look at me crazy.”
Once, during her freshman year in Stanford, a group of women in her wing were being very loud during quiet hours, and she opened her door politely to ask them to quiet down.
“They thought it was funny, and they banged on my door,” Fluellen said. “I heard them laughing outside my door, so I went out to see who it was, and they all had run away. This made me upset because if they had a problem with my tone or anything I had said, they could’ve communicated that to me.”
This, and other conflicts similar to this, made Fluellen’s experience in Stanford difficult, especially as a Black woman in her wing, since these conflicts happened very often but would never be resolved.
“Villanova puts emphasis on Caritas, Veritas, Unitas, and this situation didn’t show these core values that Villanova preaches about,” Fluellen said. “Also, I felt like I didn’t have people to go to, because people don’t understand my experience as a Black woman on campus. I was already going through a lot and there’s not a lot of us on campus, so I felt like my voice couldn’t be heard.”
Socially, living in Stanford as a POC is a challenging experience simply because of the lack of effort put into making sure all students feel welcomed and that conflicts like Fluellen’s are resolved. To attest to this experience, I have also experienced many conflicts in Stanford just because of the way I go about living in this public space. As an Afro-Latina, little things such as washing my hair, doing makeup in the bathroom, even just brushing my teeth or walking in the hallways in Stanford earned me dirty looks, which just goes to show the uncomfortable environment Stanford already presents for students of color, just by their existing in these spaces. This is just one of the many examples from Fluellen’s perspective, which is more than enough to speak to how POC residents are treated in these residence halls in South Campus. But why?
“[White people] aren’t used to seeing a lot of [Black people] because they come from the suburbs and different environments,” Fluellen said.
I feel like it would be beneficial for Residential Life to have RAs host DEI events for their residents to engage in, instead of only having these discussions during orientation, when the majority of students aren’t tuning in. Having these discussions more would help to prevent or lessen these conflicts for future POC freshman residents. Speaking to the conditions of Stanford, it has been proven notorious for not being the cleanest and most up-to-date compared to the other residential halls on South Campus.
“One thing I will say, though, is that [the bathrooms] were very dirty. I would communicate this, but no one would listen, so I feel like that would be the only thing, especially with me being a Black person, and everyone in my wing being, for the most part, white,” Eyan said.
I lived on the fifth floor of Stanford, which is notorious for being the loudest, most crowded and unsanitary floor because of the amount of constant people-traffic. The fifth floor, and other public places in Stanford are not always maintained as often as they should, and residents often have to wait until the next school day to have these public spaces cleaned, which are almost constantly in disarray or are just left overall disgusting by noon. This is a significant problem, especially since Stanford houses approximately 520 residents. There should be a more frequent cleaning cycle, and residents should be reprimanded, or at least there should be floor meetings discussing these cleanliness issues, instead of sweeping residents’ behaviors under the rug.
