With the raging controversy over O'Donnell Hall possibly becoming coed, it is important to understand that there is more at stake here than camaraderie; we are about to sacrifice community for ignorance.

The entire purpose of the notion of transferring O'Donnell into a coed residence hall next year spawns from only 44 students selecting O'Donnell Hall as their first choice of residency. This, however, is ultimately a poor basis of argument for changing the community of O'Donnell.

While selecting a place to live for the next year, incoming freshmen are presented with only what's on paper. Only things like air conditioning, private bathrooms, room sizes and speculations are presented when we are forced to make the choice. What these things don't tell us are the realities of the place to become our home.

To counter the data of only 44 students selecting O'Donnell as their primary choice, I would challenge anyone to ask O'Donnell residents if they like where they now live, and I can say with absolute certainty that an overwhelming majority would reply "Yes."

We were ignorant before we arrived here, but even so much as six weeks into the year, we are happy to call this place our home.

We are happy to be a part of this community, even without selecting it as our first choice. We are happy to be part of a tradition, even though we knew nothing of it four months before arriving on campus.

We are happy to be part of a brotherhood, even though we never imagined such a thing existed.

To argue that such community should be sacrificed for our own ignorance is to argue that potential students, who know nothing of this hall, hold more value than the current students who live here and call this place "home."

If incoming students wish to live in a coed hall, then McCormick and Abbottsford are certainly viable options for them.

If you remove the all-male aspect from O'Donnell, then there will be nothing left for those who wish to live within an all-male residence hall.

Not only that, the tradition that O'Donnell has established prides itself upon being an all-male community, and bonds of brotherhood that are not seen elsewhere on campus.

On top of that, O'Donnell Hall has a strong established relationship with Cobeen Hall, since both we and our sister hall are single-sex.

That inter-hall relationship that exists between O'Donnell and Cobeen would be rendered unnecessary with the admittance of women into O'Donnell Hall.

The residents of O'Donnell Hall are most certainly a band of brothers, even if we did not know it in August.

The Residence Hall Association's duty is to provide the students with the housing that they want, and as is, it is succeeding with that objective. Should O'Donnell become a coed hall, RHA would fail in its duties.

Burrell is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences.