Many people already have a hard time getting dates, but the men who live in Baits Houses and Fletcher Hall have it even harder. Those dorms have the highest percentage of males to females in all of the University’s residence halls.
Of the 1007 students who endure the notorious 20-minute bus ride from Baits to Central Campus, 623, or 62 percent, are male while 384, or 38 percent, are female.
Over on Sybil Street, of the 78 students who live in Fletcher Hall, 47, or 60 percent, are male and 31, about 40 percent, are female.
Many students living in the male-heavy dorms said they never realized there was a relatively substantial gender divide.
“I’ve never noticed that before,” said LSA sophomore Andrea Hudson, a Baits employee. “I actually thought we were very diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity.”
The gender disparity between Baits and Fletcher with the rest of the University’s dorms can be credited to the nearly 800 women who live in all-female Helen Newberry, Stockwell, Betsy Barbour, and Henderson residence halls, University Housing spokesman Peter Logan said.
Logan said he didn’t know why the Baits Facility and Fletcher have been dealt the brunt of this discrepancy, especially considering that most other dorms contain close to a 50-50 split between males and females. The one exception to the trend is East Quad. Home of the Women in Science and Engineering learning community, its residents are 64 percent female compared with 36 percent males.
The Vera Baits complex, which includes both Baits I and II, was erected in 1966 and finished the following year at the cost of $7 million. Students living in the Baits facility enjoy one of the best campus views of Ann Arbor from a place called Gobler’s Knob.
Fletcher Hall, located across the street from the Intramural Sports Building, was built in 1933. In years since, the University has remodeled the dormitory by turning a number of doubles into triples.