Dinner at Foley House

Another one of the things we get asked about a lot in our Student Forums is housing at Dartmouth. Once again, it's one of those questions that's somewhat difficult to answer, because 'housing' is really about more than simply what kind of room you live in. The short answer is that the rooms here are great, and there's a lot of variety in the types of residence halls, so there's really something for everyone. But while that's definitely a fair and honest description of housing here, it doesn't really capture the essence of what we mean by "variety." For instance, some of Dartmouth's greatest places to live are in what we call "Affinity Houses," or buildings with special themes that students may apply specifically to live in. They're kind of the undiscovered gems of on-campus housing, and so I just want to take a minute to tell you about one of them.

Last night I was invited to dinner at Foley House by my friend Delia. We've been friends since working on the same Undergraduate Adviser Cluster Staff last year, and she wanted me to come over since yesterday was her night to cook. Foley House residents cook for each other 5 nights a week, and it's really a great way to build a sense of community among the people that live there. Fortunately for me though, Foley is not a membership organization, so even though I don't live there I can still feel like I'm part of the community. This is especially great this summer because most of my '09 friends are off campus and it's great to have the opportunity to get to know some more '10's.

For dinner, Delia made grilled chicken and vegetable shish kabobs, scalloped potatoes, and a rice and bean dish she learned to make while volunteering in New Orleans last year. Let me tell you, if all Cajun food tastes that good, I might have to live in Louisiana for a while! We all sat out on the front porch eating and getting to know each other (well, that mostly just applied to me since most everybody there knew each other already). A lot of people were really interested to hear about what I do at Admissions since it's really a fascinating office. I have to say that Dartmouth students are the most passionate of any I've encountered about wanting prospective students to come to their school. That's what I feel so fortunate to work for Admissions, because I get to talk to "prospies" and their parents every day!

But back to dinner. It was really cool for me to get to meet so many chill people at once, and it was a great night to just hang out on a front porch. S'Mores (cooked on the grill, of course) for dessert were great (and insanely messy!) After a while it was time to clean up. I chipped in, of course, and honestly I was really surprised at how much fun doing dishes can be when you have 6 people in a kitchen all working together. We were done in almost no time and even managed not to break anything!

I hung out for a while before heading home, really glad for the experience. I'll definitely be heading back to Foley for dinner soon :)