When the students of Seton Hill University (SHU) arrived back to campus, they had noticed a lot of changes to the Residence Life policies. Many of these changes came without warning and seemingly, without reason.
Some of the biggest changes were the locks on the bathroom doors of all residence halls but Farrell Hall and DeChantal. The idea stemmed from a girl who was sexually assaulted at a university by someone who did not live on her floor. The girl tried to sue her university and lost. The university then put locks on their bathroom doors and recommended that other universities do the same.
“I could see at a state school or something where there’s a ton of people and a higher crime rate, but its really unnecessary for a small school like us,” said Rosslyn Light, a senior.
By Andrea Perkins,
Senior Staff Writer
When the students of Seton Hill University (SHU) arrived back to campus, they had noticed a lot of changes to the Residence Life policies. Many of these changes came without warning and seemingly, without reason.
Some of the biggest changes were the locks on the bathroom doors of all residence halls but Farrell Hall and DeChantal. The idea stemmed from a girl who was sexually assaulted at a university by someone who did not live on her floor. The girl tried to sue her university and lost. The university then put locks on their bathroom doors and recommended that other universities do the same.
“I could see at a state school or something where there’s a ton of people and a higher crime rate, but its really unnecessary for a small school like us,” said Rosslyn Light, a senior.
“We didn’t have any problems before that, so why would they put them on anyway. Do we have fewer problems now?” added Light.
Robin Anke, associate dean of student services and director of residence life, said that she would rather prepare for a situation rather than react to the problems on campus.
“My biggest fear is that I don’t ever want to be reacting to a situation that’s happened, I want to be proactive, I don’t want it to happen in the first place. I say let’s put locks on so it doesn’t happen at all,” she said.
Anke doesn’t believe that people will get ideas from the locks on the bathrooms. She also said that she had never thought that the student reaction would have been so violently negative.
Another policy that has been enacted at school this year has been a monetary fine when students get locked out of their rooms. The fine, which is currently $10 for the first two offenses and $25 for the third offense, is sometimes more money than students happen to have.
“The reasoning for the $10 fine is because we started to keep track of how many lockouts we were dealing with on a daily basis and we were up to four or five lockouts every day. Multiply that by seven, that’s a lot of lockouts a week,” said Anke.
Residence Life had hoped that the number of lockouts would drop as a result of the fine. Some students say they wouldn’t have a problem paying the fine if it was a little less hard on their pockets.
“I think it’s a little bit much. I’m curious to see how much money they’re going to make out of this,” said Beth Zapola, a senior. Light agreed.
“I could see it being $5, I don’t think Seton Hill realizes how much money they’re sucking from us, in addition to tuition, it’s a little bit out of control,” said Light.
Light and Zapola had come up with suggestions as alternatives to the monetary fine – they suggested that students could choose to do community service for the campus or to help clean their residence hall.
A three strikes rule was nixed by Residence Life because it was just too much to control for that many students.
“Three strikes times 800 students is a lot of strikes. We really felt that telling them the first time with a 10 dollar fine meant they won’t do it again or they’d be less apt to do it again,” said Anke.
Some students were agitated when they arrived to campus last month without having been told when storage hours would be.
Anke said that after the hectic first few weeks are over, she sits down with her staff and she goes over what worked for those few weeks. Not notifying the students and more flexible storage hours will be on her list of things to cover.
Many students, including this writer, would still like to have a say in what happens with Residence Life policy. Why can’t we be informed before these changes are made? Why can’t Residence Life ask us for an opinion when they make changes or create policies the effect of which is uncertain?
“Why can’t we ever have a say about this stuff? Why does Residence Life always do these things without asking the public about what they think?” said Light.
Perhaps Residence Life should try a forum, different from the ones held by the Seton Hill Government Association, where when they want to implement new policies, students can come and learn about them and voice their opinions. Then, when they are finally implemented, and students complain, Residence Life will be able to say, “but you had your chance to speak,” and hopefully all sides will be heard.
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