ResEd launched a new Neighborhoods Task Force last week to consider and recommend long-term changes to the neighborhood system. According to the Student Affairs website, the task force will address flexibility in housing and neighborhood assignment, the geographic proximity of neighborhood residences and scenarios where many students may be leaving a neighborhood.
English professor Elaine Treharne and Vice Provost Susie Brubaker-Cole will serve as co-chairs of the committee, which will be composed of six students “representing diverse student groups,” four staff members from ResEd and R&DE, two resident fellows and three faculty members, Student Affairs said.
The Daily has reached out to the University for comment.
The task force’s formation comes at the close of Stanford’s second year of the neighborhood system. Throughout this year, the neighborhood system has seen widespread disapproval, despite increasingly well-attended all-campus neighborhood events like Neighborhood Hyperion’s DragFest.
The creation of the task force also comes on the heels of recent changes to the neighborhood system, including the one-year pilot of rank-choice neighborhood reassignment and the temporary removal of neighborhood funding caps for each dorm earlier this year.
Critics of the neighborhood system allege that the neighborhood system doesn’t mesh with the social routes and structures through which students typically form friendships, like dorms and activities.
“I don’t think we need a task force to determine that no one likes the neighborhood system,” Ishani Mukherjee ’26 said in reference to the task force’s creation.
Along with addressing student grievances to the neighborhood system, the task force also hopes to anticipate changes such as the graduation of the abnormally large class of 2025 and the removal of EVGR-A as an undergraduate housing option, according to Student Affairs.
“We have learned a great deal over the first two years of implementation of our shared vision for housing, and we remain committed to a process of ongoing feedback and iterative improvements,” the Student Affairs website reads.
According to the Student Affairs website, the task force will submit its final report by Dec. 8, with changes expected to roll out in the fall quarter of 2024.
“I’m optimistic,” Sachin Singh ’26 said of the task force and its effect on the neighborhood system. “I just think it’ll never be a part of the social fabric of Stanford.”