Residents: Don't Continue the Transfer House

By Alex Horowitz

EVANSTON, IL – “My friend told me to avoid the Transfer House like I avoid the plague,” said Krissy Schanbacher in a voice that could not decide whether to crack with laughter or tremble with tears. From the porch of her dorm, she looked across the quad regretfully, as if she saw a greater Northwestern life on the other side.

Many other students living in the all-transfer dorm share similar sentiments. Nearly every day, complaints of isolation and drama suffocate the halls of what is now affectionately known as the Funhouse. The nickname alludes to the old-fashioned amusement buildings where visitors found the strange, the scary, and the unexpected.

“I think in theory [the Transfer House] is a great idea. Everyone’s in the same boat,” said Steve Cella, a Funhouse sophomore who transferred from Indiana University. “But in practice it’s a horrible idea. It’s isolating and it leads to a lot of the same type of people in the dorm, and those are the type of people who, by virtue of being transfers, have a low tolerance for irritation.”

Transfers, after all, are often students who identified a problem at their old schools and proactively sought a resolution. Many current Transfer House residents, like Schanbacher, believe that the concentration of these personalities into one dorm breeds the discontent that notoriously stifles the Transfer House.

“I’ve never experienced a dorm where every day some girl is crying,” said Schanbacher, who transferred from the University of Saint Thomas. “We’ve had every single person on my floor strongly consider moving out...Girls are constantly fighting and slamming doors. It all becomes this emotional rollercoaster. It’s ridiculous.”

Seven of the dorm’s 48 residents got off the rollercoaster after Fall Quarter and moved to other parts of campus. Nikki Love, a transfer from the University of Illinois, was one of them.

“There was just too much drama, too much crying,” said Love, a sophomore. “I have some good friends there, but I felt like anything that happened set off a psychological explosion.”

Even if transfers do not have a lower tolerance for conflict than other students, it is clear that their conflicts are more frequent. According to Northwestern Student Affairs, the Transfer House consistently logs a disproportionate number of disciplinary issues for its size.

Brian Apel, this year’s Community Assistant of the Transfer House, thinks that these problems could be attributed to the unique mix of excitement and experience inherent to transfer students.

“It’s very common for transfer students to have the energy of freshmen because they’re at a new school, but to not have a lot of what I call ‘freshman baggage,’” said Apel. “The whole college thing isn’t new to them [and] they are more adept to acquiring alcohol. In that respect I think that’s why there are more disciplinary issues.”

Emotional and disciplinary problems aside, many Transfer House residents claim to have a difficult time assimilating into Northwestern’s social structure. Transfers have neither freshmen numbers nor the existing networks that other upperclassmen maintain. Their closest friends will naturally be those they live with, and for that reason most Funhouse residents simply mingle amongst themselves.

“[The Transfer House] limits Northwestern students from getting to know who’s in the transfer dorm and it limits transfer students from getting to know Northwestern,” said Schanbacher, a sophomore. “It sounds like a great idea at first, but after that, you pretty much don’t get a Northwestern experience.”

Kaitlin Barancik, a Transfer House resident who attended Mount Holyoke College as a freshman, says she feels equally helpless.

“We become our own friends and our only friends,” said Barancik. “I’m pretty embarrassed to say I live in the Transfer House.”

Behind these cries of despair, a minority of students continue to embrace the dorm. Jad Carson, a transfer from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, says that the Transfer House was a key factor in his decision to transfer, and that the problems other residents have can be overcome.

“I like the general idea of [the Transfer House]. In fact, when I was applying to schools, that was one of the things that drew me here,” said Carson, an engineering major. “I have had no problem making friends with other people. All it takes is to go out and join a club, join a fraternity or sorority. There are tons of opportunities at Northwestern, and if you’re having trouble making other non-transfer friends, you’re not trying hard enough.”

Apel, although not a transfer himself, also supports the continuation of the Transfer House and thinks that at the very least it provides a cohesive sense of acceptance for many transfers.

“I think it gives a lot of students a very quick sense of identity,” said Apel. “Like, ‘I’ve got a lot of friends who are going through the same thing I am, and I’ve got a place that I can be.’”

The Transfer House may also help carve an identity for transfers that live in other dorms throughout campus. Max Clarke, a transfer that lives in nearby Lindgren Hall, says the Transfer House serves as a physical center for the entire transfer community.

“I think having a community for transfer students is better than not having a community for transfer students,” said Clarke, a sophomore. “Even if that is a flawed group, even if that community has issues, I think that any community is better than none.”

Before the Transfer House was created, the university had simply paired transfers together as roommates and sprinkled them into various campus dorms. The Transfer House was then formed four years ago after Northwestern’s Kappa Sigma fraternity vacated the building.

During its first year of existence, the Transfer House received glowing reviews from many residents. In each year since then, however, more and more problems have arisen, and the debate about whether to continue or terminate the Transfer House has escalated.

“We’re just not getting a Northwestern experience,” concluded Schanbacher. “We’re getting some awkward, weird, emotionally psychopathic transfer experience.”

While Northwestern Housing has already voted to continue the Transfer House for the 2007-2008 academic year, what lies beyond that remains a mystery.

“Nothing is ever set in stone on campus,” said Kristin Thomas, an Administrative Coordinator in Housing and former transfer student. “Things can always be changed. It’s a very new program, and the more input we get from students that go through it, the better off we’ll all be.”