In Between: The Fluctuations of Academy House

By Bea Becker ‘25 

The news came on August 20th: for the second consecutive year in the dorm’s three year history, Academy House would exist on only the first two floors in the building it shares with Forbes House. The school’s administration delivered the news in a sparsely worded email, framing the decision as a positive change to accommodate the "increased student interest" in the dorm. Eleven students will live in the house (myself included), the most the dorm has ever housed. 

To those unaware, Academy House is Milton's only all-gender housing option, housed in what used to be the east wing of Forbes House. The dorm opened during the 2022-2023 school year, with enough beds to house sixteen students on two floors. During its first year, all eight residents of the dorm lived without roommates, spread over the second and third floors. 

Since its inception, Academy House residents have felt the pressure to increase the dorm's population, since the number of residents in this “opt in” system affects the number of floors provided to the dorm. Cooper Jones '25 explains that "we want to be seen as people and not beds to fill," he said. Despite the residents' recruitment efforts, many students arrive on campus not even aware of the dorm. Khoi Coleman, a freshman in the dorm, testified that looking for information on all-gender housing felt "like I was searching for something that didn't exist."

In the dorm's second year, the space was downsized. With only six residents living on campus that year, the third floor was returned to Forbes, and all Academy residents lived in the five rooms (two doubles, three singles) on the second floor. Cooper said that the choice to downsize the dorm "made us self-conscious about being small, because it felt like the school was validating the idea that we wouldn't grow." 

Throughout the year, residents met with communications and admission staff and talked to prospective and revisiting students in an effort to increase the dorm's enrollment with the goal of a return to the third floor. By the end of the year, residents were heartened to know that they had successfully recruited enough students that the second floor's seven beds wouldn't be able to house them all.

As the beginning of the school year came into view, residents were ready to receive good news about the future of the dorm, only to have their expectations shattered by the news of a second year relegated to only two floors. The news came as a shock and a disappointment, one that took away the third floor that Olena Petryshyn '25 had been "looking forward to for my senior year." Petryshyn felt that the news was "scary and unexpected because [the dorm’s residents] weren't together to discuss it." Many Academy House residents sent responses to the administration in the days following, frustrated at the news’ late, impersonal delivery and the news itself. While in some ways Academy House is like every other dorm, it also has different needs given its constituency. The dorm has three single-stall bathrooms on the second floor; how would it deal with busy mornings with eleven residents? How could it fulfill the goal of providing a safe space for students to move into if every bed is filled? How would eleven people fit on a floor that previously held seven? 

The answer to that final question was "flex spaces," two rooms adjacent to the second floor would be doubles in this upcoming school year. This meant that in a dorm where two years ago, no one had lived with a roommate, now eight of the eleven residents would have to be paired up, a task that proved daunting in a dorm with such diverse needs. 

While roommate pairings are not limited to the same gender, Ms. Lockwood, the head of Academy House, said that "potential roommate pairings across gender or sex assigned at birth must be discussed with parents and guardians, a step in Academy's process that rarely happens in other dorms." This means that if a student and a parent's wishes aren't in line, a student might end up in a less comfortable pairing. Ms. Lockwood also said that a "significant challenge is the process of pairing incoming students we have not yet met. The little information we have about incoming residents does not allow for pairings to be finalized until after the students arrive on campus…This delay and last-minute decision can create a sense of uncertainty for boarders (and families) on their first few days living in a new home." 

During the first weekend of the school year, Academy House residents sat down with Mrs. Stone, Mr. Ruiz, and Ms. Walker-Johnson to discuss the future of the dorm. In that meeting, the administrators took accountability for the poor communication of the decision and listened to students' concerns about the future of their dorm. Olena was heartened that "the administration and new principal are open to hearing other perspectives." Still, residents left feeling frustrated that they didn't receive any certainty about the future of their dorm. "It met my expectations: no promises, nothing tangible, nothing urgent to the situation. They don't care personally about the issue," Cooper said. 

For the seniors in the dorm, the future is a real concern. According to Olena “that trust relationship with the administration has been broken,” and hope can feel scarce. Olena told me, “it’s been three years and the situation still feels uncertain…I feel sorry about leaving this mess for the younger students."