It may not be revolutionary, but Boston University administrators announced yesterday that the long student-hated Guest Policy will change. Slightly.
No, the policy was not abolished. And yes, students will still need to sign into other dorms and fill out paperwork to get their friends from other schools overnight visitation privileges. But there will be some slight changes to the current policy, which was instituted in 1989.
The changes come in two areas. Starting this spring, the reformed policy will allow students to sign their BU friends into their dorms until 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, instead of the current 12 a.m. deadline. Students living in on-campus residences will be allowed to simply swipe into any large campus dormitory between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. and will be able to more informally sign in between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m. without official resident permission. Family members of BU students will also be allowed to visit overnight with less than 24 hours of notice, a situation not accounted for in the current policy. The new policy also allots each student seven non-BU student overnight passes per semester.
The changes are more substantive than many students expected and happened more quickly than seemed possible, after former BU President Jon Westling’s surprise mid-summer resignation. Because of the student perception that BU administrators do not frequently listen to their concerns, any changes probably seem quite reasonable to most students. After living through nearly 13 years with an overly commandeering policy, students should see the changes as a welcome allowance of freedom.
But there are many reasons to be critical of the changes. In a more healthy student-administrator environment, administrators’ proposed changes would seem minor and a long time in coming. The modified policy addresses student concerns only slightly, leaving many students’ qualms with the current policy unanswered. Though it extends student sign-in hours until 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, students still must leave their friends’ residences by 2:30 a.m. Though the changes will allow on-campus residents to swipe into any dormitory between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., it does not address off-campus residents’ swipe-in privileges.
Not only are the changes relatively limited, but the process by which administrators reached the policy changes did not sufficiently include students. Though the changes evolved out of Union efforts to show administrators student dislike of the policy, administrators’ formulation of official changes this fall did not include any students. The process should have looked more like a negotiation between employers and employees than a one-sided dictation of policy from parents to children. Union officials said repeatedly that the proposal included in the “University Perspectives” document was intended to be a draft and a starting point for discussions. But rather than treating it as a living document, administrators took it at face value and worked a compromise from there. With inclusion in the process, students could have better told administrators their preferences and priorities, which could have better enabled administrators to understand the Union’s intents and satisfy the needs of the greater student body.
Union officials also approached administrators professionally when they began their efforts last spring, a courtesy that was not returned by administrators this fall. Former Union President Zachary Coseglia met with numerous deans and school officials and took Westling through the Union’s report when he presented it to him in March. And Union officials discouraged students from protesting Chancellor John Silber’s inflammatory comments about student efforts during the spring, citing the importance of showing respect. Administrators returned no such courtesy. In the end, students would have likely been happy with administrators’ proposed changes, but the courtesy of consulting with students would have shown them more administrator respect than was evidenced.
The committee’s warning of a return to the current policy if “the revised policies result in a degradation of conditions” is yet another insult to the Union’s professional and mature approach to affecting change in the policy. Despite past students’ misdeeds, administrators should acknowledge that today’s student body is much more academically proficient than that of 13 years ago, as shown by the Union approach. Administrators must have more faith that students will be able to handle the minimal increases in freedom the new policy will allow.
The new plan does represent progress, but students should not expect any more leeway on the policy from administrators over the next few years. It will be tough for student leaders to pressure administrators to further change the policy in the near future because administrators feel their changes are very reasonable, as evidenced by the wording of the committee’s own report. They will likely be unwilling to make further changes and may even resent efforts to further relax the policy.
Last year’s Student Union leaders deserve a great deal of credit for the changes which will appear in the spring. Their exhaustive research showed clear evidence that students are dissatisfied with the current Guest Policy and gave administrators a real reason to make changes. They made sure to remember professionalism every step of the way, which likely made administrators take student concerns more seriously. For once, students did not just whine about BU’s problems — they took positive, methodical and effective action to make change.
The days many students have awaited since coming to BU will soon finally arrive. Though the changes are nominal, the additional freedom will be a welcomed breath of fresh air.
