Mary Markley Residence Hall is a paragon of multiculturalism. There are lounges dedicated to and themed around multiculturalism. The residential staff is extremely diverse and committed to multiculturalism, holding programs and events aiming to promote cultural awareness every year. There's just one small problem: The overwhelming majority of Markley residents are white.

The University has a great reputation for its diversity, and about 25 percent of its undergraduate student body is made up of minorities. Through its admissions and recruitment policies as well as its resources, the administration has done a great deal to support minority groups and to ensure that the University retains a diverse student body. Unfortunately, these efforts to build a diverse student body are all inconsequential if the final result is simply a self-segregated student body where people rarely interact with those of other ethnicities. This is unfortunately a major problem on our campus, as documented in an op-ed page on self-segregation published in the Daily last semester.

With all these problems of self-segregation, the University definitely needs to do much more to promote diversity not only in numbers, but also in actual communities. The best way to do so is through the residence halls.

Almost all students at the University spend their freshman year in the dorms. They make their first college friends during this time and often continue these friendships long after moving out of the dorms. In addition, their residence hall communities often shape their social networks while at college - someone who has a diverse group of friends is usually more comfortable and enthusiastic about meeting others of different races as well.

Unfortunately, despite all attempts by the University and the Residence Halls Association to promote diversity, the system used to assign residence halls to students is completely colorblind. Students are assigned to dorms based solely on their preferences and availability. As a result, halls such as Markley which have a reputation for being "white" have a hard time attracting minorities and continue to remain homogeneous, year after year. On the flip side, halls that have a high concentration of minorities, such as Baits, continue to attract more minorities. This, of course, breeds self-segregation and leaves large portions of the white student body with little experience living in a diverse community.

Here's a worrying fact that highlights the above problem: Even before students had moved into Markley and met their roommates this fall, the hall's residential directors received complaints from parents who had looked up their children's roommates on Facebook and requested a roommate change simply because they didn't want their children living with someone of a different race. If all these complaints have come about from the small pool of residents living with someone of a different race, imagine the total number of parents who hold negative stereotypes of minorities. If nothing is done to convince these residents otherwise, they will grow up sharing their parents' prejudices. These residents are badly in need of a diverse living community.

University Housing states that its mission is to "create and sustain diverse learning-centered residential communities that further the goals of the University . Part of this openness to ideas is an acceptance and appreciation of diverse cultures from around the country and around the world - an allowance not only for people to be different, but a recognition that such diversity is the vital core of University life." As long as the hall assignment system continues to be colorblind and some residence halls are almost entirely white, University Housing will have a hard time upholding its mission statement. Considering how much the importance of diversity is stressed in the mission statement, as well as the amount of effort the University is putting into promoting diversity, I have a hard time understanding why the University is willing to sacrifice its goal of diverse residential communities simply to pander to the whims of freshmen and allow them to stay inside their comfort zones.

The University should be applauded for its efforts to promote diversity in its student body. However, more effort is needed to break down the walls of self-segregation. Considering the University's use of affirmative action to promote diversity, it would only make sense for University Housing to adopt a race-conscious hall assignment system to promote multiculturalism and the true benefits of diversity.

Prabhakar is an Engineering senior and a member of the Daily's editorial board.