Seventeen students don’t live in any old dorm room on some random floor where they don’t really talk to their neighbors. These seventeen students live in a dorm building and live in dorm rooms, but the difference here is that these students all live in what is called “The Q”.
So what is the “The Q”? Well, it’s a gender-neutral floor that is located in the Pemi hall on the first floor. Created only a year ago when students in the LGBTQA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Allie) community voiced concerns and a need for a safe place on campus where they could feel at home no matter what their sexual identity was.
“This community is so great because it doesn’t exclude anyone. Are you androgynous, are you a straight couple… it doesn’t matter,” stated the Resident Director of Pemi Hall, Domenica Medaglia-Brown.
The “Q” itself is made up of rooms 101-115 on the first floor of Pemigewasset Hall, and is made up of doubles and singles. The rooms are distributed to those who request this area.
The rooms themselves are gender neutral, meaning if a boy wants to live with a girl or another boy, or someone who is transgender he can do so without question. On the floor there is a gender-neutral bathroom for the residents of “The Q” as well.
However, while “The Q” may have a few physical differences from the rest of the residence halls, the staff also makes sure to go through specific training for the position. Aside from the actual residents of The Q, the staff, from the CAs to Night Attendants, must go through training before they are allowed to work at The Q.
“The staff has gone through a safe zone training, which teaches us about different needs people in this community might have-teaches us different terminology,” said Medaglia-Brown.
Those who live on this floor really care about one another and create a place where they want to live.
“There is this automatic friend network, the students on “The Q” are very close because they’ve got that bond. They’re very respectful. They develop their own set of community expectations,” said Medaglia-Brown.
“Everybody is really friendly,” said junior Q resident, Dexter Richards, “so if you’re interested in a friendly community this is a good place [to live].”