We have given problems with roommates a special entry because we have learned over the years to take them very seriously. Rooms in the dorms are small; students are adjusting to a many new situations; they need a "safe place" to live and study. If a roommate is frequently inconsiderate (too much loud music, too many unwelcome visitors, disregard for the other’s property, or disdain or ridicule of the other’s values, activities, or character), your son or daughter can become unsettled, unhappy, and academically unproductive. Not all roommates become good friends, but they should all be considerate of one another.
When problems arise, Cornell University’s policy is to encourage roommates to resolve differences themselves or, if necessary, to mediate. While this policy most often works and contributes to helping young people mature, it implies rationality, honesty, and compromise as viable solutions. These solutions are not always at hand, though. Occasionally a person has a roommate with such serious social or emotional problems that resolutions become impossible. If that happens, it is usually possible, with much insistence, for the person most in distress to move. (We wish the person with the anti-social behavior were the one who had to move, but, alas, at present, that is not the case.) If you are persuaded that your child has tried and failed to resolve problems with a roommate and is in an impossible situation, please urge her/him to see either someone in Residential Life beyond the person in charge of the individual dormitory, or a dean in the college’s Academic Advising Center.