A Dorm of Their Own: How Students Build Unique Dorm Culture
Written by Megan Li
A vital question for incoming freshmen to consider upon acceptance to Hillsdale is where they would like to live on campus. Well, upperclassmen have the scoop on that! Over the years, each of Hillsdale’s on-campus residences has acquired its own culture and reputation that beckons to different students. But there is one catch.
Each residence is single-sex, and the jaws of students from larger universities and colleges might drop upon hearing this. Instead, Hillsdale women visit men’s dorms and vice versa during a set period of time in the evenings and weekends called visiting hours. But this is, in fact, a positive, formative rule for everyone involved.
This is a discipline in both respecting the privacy of others and promoting the liberties of dorm culture. The rules and guidelines of visiting hours appear to restrict residents, but it is the resulting responsibility, discipline, and self-governance cultivated through this practice that frees each resident, those with visitors and those without, to enjoy a well-ordered living space rich with community. Such a system enables mutual trust between all residents and roommates, which is the undeniable cornerstone of a home.
College is each young man and woman’s first opportunity to develop healthy living habits that will follow them into their adult lives, and there is no better place to find them than in a dormitory filled with other men or women in the same stage of life. As a resident assistant in McIntyre—the largest freshman women’s dorm on campus—I’ve been blessed to watch this year’s freshman women transform the dormitory into a home that is their very own.
During orientation, groups of girls walked from room to room, meeting new friends and complimenting each other’s setup. The shared spaces are consistently full of friend groups hosting a “girl-talk” session. The West lobby is always full of the smells of delicious treats baking in the oven and movie nights, while twinkling fairy lights string the ceiling of the East lobby and pictures fill the walls, with a piano in the corner obtained from Facebook Marketplace. The night of President’s Ball, laughing girls ran down the halls, borrowing makeup items, curling each other’s hair, and excitedly complimenting each other’s dresses—it is the very picture of girlhood. Several men in suits and ties, some of them holding flowers, had come to the main lobby to wait patiently for the girls they would be escorting.
In the biggest residence on campus, Simpson, the culture is equally and notoriously strong. The men’s dormitory has earned a reputation for taking everything they do to a hilarious extreme, and their efforts have earned them the first-place Homecoming trophy for consecutive years. Resident assistants volunteer day and night to rack up the number of volunteering hours, skip classes to film a Homecoming video worthy of first place, and round up their residents to rehearse for Mock Rock, Homecoming’s dance competition between all dormitories and Greek houses, for hours upon end. In Simpson Smackdown, a two-year-old event that mimics Word Wrestling Entertainment, the Simpson men purchased a wooden wrestling ring, brought in faculty to wrestle with each other and with students, and dressed their “wrestlers” up as fictional personas with backstories to boot. Their Simpson Asylum haunted house event during the fall includes an elaborate maze through the dorm filled with themed decorations and residents in costumes. Simpson men engage in pranks across the dorm, build igloos in their front yard with blocks of ice cut and hauled straight from Baw Beese Lake, film music videos, and develop an extreme devotion toward the place they live in. A former Simpson resident assistant even wrote a sizable book of Simpson lore—so strong is the legend of the residence’s past.
Rather than establishing a divide between the sexes at Hillsdale, the nature of single-sex dormitories cultivates true respect between them while fostering responsibility, discipline, and respect for others in each man or woman. From the baking parties in McIntyre to the laughable shenanigans of Simpson, rich cultures and lifelong friendships are born out of Hillsdale’s residences, contributing to the college experience at Hillsdale and remaining with the students for the rest of their lives.
Megan Li, ’27, is studying economics and journalism. When she isn’t consuming an unhealthy amount of caffeine to finish her homework, you can find her curled up with a good book, taking photos outdoors, or playing her guitar.
Published in September 2025