Soon, Boston University students will open their e-mail and find a message from the administration. It’ll be the news they’ve been waiting to hear. And, in some ways, it won’t.
They’ll read that their complaints have been heard and they’ll see just what organization and determination can achieve. But it won’t feel like they thought it would. They’ll stare at the screen and think: This is what we were fighting for. Isn’t it?
In the lore of Boston University, yesterday was historic. After 13 years of student protest, an era crumbled to dust. It seemed impossible last spring, and even grimmer with Chancellor John Silber’s assumption of the presidency this summer, but it happened. The Guest Policy changed. And we were the ones that made it happen.
Starting this spring, BU residents will be able to enter any residence hall they want, and for more hours than has been possible since the policy was implemented. They can swipe into all large residences, regardless of where on campus they live, and they can start to do so as early as 7 a.m. On Friday and Saturday, they can be signed into a dorm as late as 1 a.m., a full hour later than is currently possible.
Most importantly, they can swipe most of the time. No longer will matriculated, $37,000-paying students always have to get signed in at the security desk to visit a friend or to grab some Late Nite in an unfriendly dining hall. Now, we can swipe. Great God almighty, we can swipe.
In the end, we got a couple extra free hours a week and a little less heartache. And this is good. For the life of me, I never expected we’d get this far.
We can take this and go. The chancellor’s committee has thrown us a crumb, and we’d be fools not to scarf it down, belch and be happy. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. BU students want more than these changes are serving up. In a year or two, the rally cries quieted today will start to rumble. A new crop of students, unaware of the progress made here this week, will check into Warren Towers and ask, “What do you mean I can’t spend the night where I want to?”
They’ll wonder why their off-campus classmates can’t stay over without cheating the system via study extension. They’ll see that the new policy is just as grounded in conservative morality as the previous one — just as hostile to student sexual activity as ever. They’ll consider the schools they could have gone to, just as we did. Other campuses let their students come and go without hassle, so why is BU so strict?
BU students were handed a small taste of their dream yesterday. But it’s only a part. And this complicates things all the more. If yesterday proved anything, it’s that change isn’t impossible, but it sure doesn’t come easy. Today, achieving change could be harder than ever. After getting so much, how could we ask for more?
BU is not expecting us to be quiet. But the administration played its cards well. They know the pressure is now on us to prove we deserve what we got. It’s all in the ultimatum, issued yesterday just below the written changes: If by this May there’s reason to question the new policy, BU’s great liberal experiment will be stamped a failure. Students are in the hot seat, and BU is watching, waiting for that ultimate “We told you so.”
Everything after now is a test. The university has offered us a challenge: Stay smart, keep your wits and this could only be the beginning. Mess up, and this will surely be the end.
For now, it seems we’re going to have to wait. And behave. We have to show the administration that it wasn’t wrong to have confidence in us. As much a test of our maturity, this is a test of our resolve. We have to ask ourselves how much we want this, and what we’re willing to sacrifice to keep it.
The task of proving our responsibility to the university is not done. At the very least, however, we can take pride in our achievement. It was not a small one, and it’s been quite some time in the works. BU doesn’t look at the current student body as it did the ones before it, and that alone is something to celebrate.
I’d like to think I know a victory when I see one. Yesterday was a victory. I just wish it felt a little more like it.