As thousands of Boston University students moved back into campus dormitories this week, several department heads watched from the sidelines and held their breath.
For the entering class of 2011, the unpacking of suitcases and cardboard boxes is their signal that the Charles River campus is now their home. And with this understanding, they learned of BU’s Guest Policy, a policy which has changed dramatically since last spring.
But with those changes now in place, what can students expect this fall? For every new resident, there are those returning residents who may be apprehensive or confused as to what the new policy actually means for them.
Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore, who was at the forefront of the policy’s changes in April, recently revealed that answer: a two-page online document outlining extended swipe-in hours for large on-campus residence halls, as well as one single sign-in pass for guests. Nevertheless, as the semester begins, so does a watch on how residents will handle their new responsibility.
“Part of being an incoming student is learning to adjust to what you’ve got in front of you,” Elmore said. “This is probably more of a difficult piece for our returning students, because it’s a shift in perhaps some of their thinking.”
NEW YEAR, NEW RULES
One of the biggest changes to the Guest Policy surrounds the hours that on-campus students can swipe into another student’s dorm. Encouraging more communication amongst roommates, several rules have been eliminated, including the co-host policy, study extensions and the 7 p.m. deadline for on-campus students to swipe into major residence halls.
“I think the newer aspects about this is that we’ve eliminated a lot of the bureaucracy involved with this,” Elmore said. “We have made this far more enforceable.”
The policy became official last spring after a proposal was unanimously approved by the University Council, a group of university faculty and administrators.
The biggest concern university administration may now have about the changes is the switch from a paper document agreement to verbal consent between roommates for BU visitors and guests. As a result, Office of Residence Life staff — which train resident assistants every year in how to implement university policy such as the Guest Policy — introduced the Roommate Success Kit, a non-binding document between residents explaining tips for how roommates can verbally communicate with one another.
Assistant Dean David Zamojski, who is also ORL director, helped form a group of BU staff this summer to facilitate with the policy’s implementation. The group, which included ORL staff and three students, two of whom are resident assistants, met each week. Wanting to ensure a collaborative implementation, the group spoke with Elmore, representatives from the Office of Housing and the Office of Judicial Affairs ‘ Student Safety Programs, Zamojski said.
“The policy presupposes that students will conduct themselves with maturity and a respect for their roommates and the greater community,” he said in an email. “I’m confident that our resident students will do just that.”
Still, off-campus students will be treated as guests, with their hosts directed to sign them into a respective dorm.
“We have limited common space in our residences, and the facilities that we have in the residences are designed to serve students in residence,” Zamojski said. “We have university facilities that serve all students … and off-campus students should certainly utilize those facilities as best they can.”
THE GROUNDWORK
Rumors of policy change have been years in the making. After President Robert Brown’s 2005 inauguration, the possibility seemed more likely, particularly after Elmore began asking for policy feedback from several students, faculty and staff in the summer of 2006.
Members of a university committee which handles student policies than began seriously looking into the policy and how they could change it, Elmore said.
Among the things now discussed this summer was security assistance in the dorms and how resident assistants would be trained in implementing the policy.
“We did go line by line,” said Elmore.
Security assistants, who are located at the entrance of 11 residence halls on campus 24 hours a day, will play a larger role with providing guest policy information to students because of the direct interaction.
“That’s what we’ve been spending a lot of our time thinking through,” he said. “They’re a real important information point.”
Elmore said one of the most important things students can consider is just being open to change.
“Now we have to give more guidance to people,” he said. “They’ve got to make a lot more decisions for themselves. And with that, our focus is certainly enforcing policy, but it’s less on enforcing it and more so on making sure people can make good decisions for themselves.”
Other departments, such as the BU Police Department are not expecting any increase in safety risks for on-campus residents, said BUPD spokesperson Sergent Jack St. Hilaire.
“As far as the police go, there are no additional resources that are necessary for the policy,” he said.
Nevertheless, St. Hilaire said officials are prepared to step in if an emergency arises, especially with the expected increase in the number of people in the dorms.
“I think there’s been some discussion on that,” he said. “We are not concerned, but we’re aware of it, and we’re just going to wait and see what happens.”
A TEST RUN?
With the policy set in place, it will be students’ responsibility not to abuse it, Elmore said, although he recognizes the increased possibility of roommate conflicts.
“I think there’s always going to be roommate conflicts,” he said. “Guests, no matter what, is one of those conflict points between two people. That’s always going to be there. I guess what we have to do is make sure that we get into this culture where people have conversations with each other … where they discuss things with one another.”
Office of Housing Director Marc Robillard said he could not predict whether the new policy would create more communication amongst roommates.
“I don’t know how you measure that. It’s not my responsibility,” he said. “But I would imagine that to be natural outcome.”
Several university administrators may possibly reconvene at the end of the academic year to decide whether the policy should be revised if students fail to follow it properly, Zamojski said.
“All of our policies are open to review when we think it appropriate to do so,” he said in an email. “There’s no plan at this time to make modifications to the policy after one semester, but I’d say we’d begin the conversation if necessary.”
Elmore said although there is that possibility, there would be an extensive process behind changing any university policy.
“We’re certainly looking at this year as a particularly important year to do an analysis of how the policy is working,” he said. “This is like any other policy we have, and we should be giving some thought to what we’re doing.”
Ultimately, university officials are attempting to eliminate ways in which residents may try to find loopholes around the policies’ rules and instead make more responsible decisions, Elmore said.
“We’re trying to take the games out of the system, and just go right into a more pure circumstance, and that is, don’t compromise the safety and security of this building by bringing people in that you don’t know,” he said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of people out there who have reservations about this … but we’ve got to move forward.”
Barbara Rodriguez is an ORL resident assistant.