This past week, Stanford dean of Residential Education Deborah Golder announced that, starting next fall, Naranja will be the testing grounds for a new entrepreneurship-free housing option.
“We’ve heard the feedback from students around campus, and we know that there are those who just aren’t comfortable with the amount of entrepreneurship that seems to occur in almost every dorm,” said Golder.
Plans are still in the initial stages, but so far the guidelines prohibit sticky notes, rapid prototyping, the dorm mailing list, words ending in “ly,” and swively chairs.
Golder is still worried: “This may not be enough, and since this is the first time we are doing it, we have lots of questions to answer. What do we do if the RA walks in on a student ideating?”
We spoke to several students who echoed the need for this type of housing. “My roommate last year was a little too into entrepreneurship,” said Cole Grinly ‘13. “He kept asking me to invest; first a dollar here, and then more each weekend. One day he was sent to StartX, and he never came back.”
“We want to create a safe space where students can live without white boards, beta testing, and constant iteration,” said Golder. “Think of it as an AirBnB for fuzzies.”
