By Paul A. Djupe, Data for Political Research
After 50 years, Denison has announced the end of residential living at The Homestead. Of course that has been a controversial decision; it even was covered by local NBC news as well as The Denisonian. The protests give us a sense that a number of students oppose closing the Homestead, but how much of campus is not on board with the Administration?
We just wrapped the fall 2026 survey of 542 students in which we asked if respondents agreed or disagreed with the statement, “I support Denison’s decision to close The Homestead.” Figure 1 shows that the decision is indeed unpopular with students – 58 percent disagree (or strongly disagree). It’s important that 41 percent strongly disagree, suggesting that opposition isn’t very soft. While just 18 percent agree with the decision, a good chunk (25%) say neither. Still, that’s a sizable majority of students who are opposed to the decision.
While we’re here, let’s take a quick tour to assess where that support is located among students. I’m a political scientist, so my mind runs to partisanship and there are good reasons for it. Democrats are more on board with environmental protection and sustainability, so that may help explain the lopsided disagreement with the Homestead decision – 66 percent of Democrats disagree compared to 48 percent of Independents and just 21 percent of Republicans. But agreement only grows so much, instead what shoots up is indifference – the plurality of Republicans don’t care (‘neither’ is often a catch basin for indifference).
The Homestead seems like one of those Denison things, a fixture of the campus that students would come to appreciate. Apparently it’s a thing students either like or don’t, and, if anything, support for closing it rises across class years – it doubles from 12 to 24 percent. First years are the most supportive of The Homestead, but are also the most indifferent – some have no idea what The Homestead even is after just 10 weeks on campus.
Closing The Homestead has been in the works for a few years and students are now weighing in on that decision. A majority of the student body is not on board with closure and many are making their voices heard on campus.
Paul A. Djupe is a local cyclist who runs the Data for Political Research minor. He started onetwentyseven.blog a decade ago in a bid to subsidize collective action and spread accurate knowledge about campus and what goes on there. He also writes about religion and politics in the US.
