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Guest Policy Proposal Revealed

The Student Union will ask for 24-hour access for Boston University students to all BU dormitories, guest authorization within 24 hours of a guest’s arrival and an increase in per-student overnight guest pass allotment in its formal Guest Policy proposal, which was announced at last night’s Union meeting by Union President Zachary Coseglia.

Coseglia said he has contacted President Jon Westling’s office about setting up a meeting to present the policy, but has yet to receive a response.

With the Union’s proposed policy changes, BU students would be able to be signed into any dormitory by a local resident between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. The current policy allows residents to sign students into their dormitories between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m., with no admittance after 12 a.m. Students also must leave residences by 1 a.m. on weeknights and 2:30 a.m. on weekends under the current policy.

Students with meal plans would still be able to swipe into any BU residence with a dining hall between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. in the Union proposal.

The Union’s proposal also would allow students to sign non-BU student guests into dormitories without the currently required business day of advance notice. The emergency passes would only require the signatures of those living within the resident’s immediate living area. Students would be able to pick up emergency overnight guest passes from residence guards.

“There’s something to be said for spontaneity,” Coseglia said. “Students cannot always be expected to plan one business day in advance for overnight guests who are not BU students — at least we shouldn’t have to.”

Residents would also be allotted 15 three-day guest passes per semester with a restriction on the number of emergency passes in the Union’s proposal. The current policy allows students five per semester.

Though the proposal calls for specific changes in the current Guest Policy, the committee hopes for the formation of a University task force to look at the issue, Coseglia said.

“We want faculty, administrators and students working on it together to find a policy that will work better,” he said.

The Union’s full report will include statistics from more than 1,000 student surveys and 200 student perspectives compiled over the past 5 weeks, according to Coseglia. The statistics show students overwhelmingly in favor of a change in the Guest Policy, while mixed on whether to abolish the policy entirely.

More than 99 percent of survey respondents said they are not satisfied with the current Guest Policy and would like to see changes made to it. More than 99 percent also said a relaxed policy would “enhance [their] personal BU experience.”

Peter Wood, Westling’s chief of staff, said although he had not seen the Union’s specific numbers, such statistics could be deceiving.

“I don’t regard myself as having a lot to say,” he said, “other than I understand the psychological dynamics of student life enough to know that a lot of people who would be unwilling to declare publicly that they do like the policy do draw some benefit from the policy as it is.”

Six hundred and eleven of the 1,032 respondents said they do not want to abolish the policy entirely, according to the Union data.

“Students have become disillusioned,” Coseglia said, reading from the unfinished proposal. “They don’t feel like they’re getting the most of their BU experience.”

Coseglia also said parent surveys conducted by the committee show that parents do not feel changes in the current policy would be unreasonable.

“A lot of parents told us the rules we have are a lot more strict than they have at their homes,” Coseglia said.

The committee looked at the guest policies of Northeastern University and Emerson College, both of which Coseglia said are similar to BU in environment. Coseglia said the committee found both schools allow all students 24-hour access to all dormitories, with students serving as security guards rather than professionals. He said both schools reported lower or comparable crime levels.

Also included in the report will be the results of conversations with faculty, administrators and BU police officers.

Coseglia pointed to opinions published by John Silber in a 1998 Daily Free Press letter to the editor and his book, “Straight Shooting.” Coseglia quoted Silber several times during his comments last night and said the Union’s proposal fulfills many of Silber’s ideas about the ideal Guest Policy.

“Mr. Silber, it seems, shares our vision — a vision in which dormitories are a safe place for student thought, development and study,” Coseglia said. “The Guest Policy we are forced to live under fails to live up to his standards.”

Coseglia quoted Silber as saying “the goal of the University is not to restrict the freedom of dormitory residents, but to maximize it.”

“This committee refuses to believe that BU’s current policy maximizes our freedom — not because we believe there should be no policy at all, but because there are clear alternatives to a policy that has brought students to honestly believe that the University’s goal is to restrict our freedom,” he said.

Coseglia said the proposal is still a “work in progress” and the Union Guest Policy Proposal committee will be adding to the proposal based on faculty and administration feedback.

Coseglia met with BU Provost Dennis Berkey during Spring Break and said he solicited valuable input from Berkey, including to whom to best address the proposal. He said Berkey suggested talking to Westling because, the Provost told him, “If you want to change something like this, you have to go to God, and in this case, his name is Jon Westling.”

The current policy was adopted in 1989 after numerous complaints about a system with many fewer regulations, according to Director of the Office of Residence Life Jack Weldon. Weldon said the 1989 version of the policy was modified to its current form several years after its adoption at the urging of several Residence Hall Associations.

“Before 1989, it was a situation where sophomores and juniors moved off campus because they couldn’t sleep or study,” he said. “When you have literally hundreds of people coming and going, there are a large number of malicious fire alarms and a lot more vandalism.”

The former policy allowed students 24-hour access to all dormitories. Weldon said the current policy also prevents roommate conflict and protects roommate privacy because of its overnight guest requirement of roommate approval.

“It’s a residence hall first and foremost — the reason we’re here is so people can sleep and study,” he said. “We believe that large numbers of students coming and going at all hours of the day is not conducive to sleep and study.

“As the director of residence life, I believe the current policy has worked in protecting students rights and providing a community that they can study and sleep without unreasonable disruption.”

Wood agreed.

“The current policy arose in the circumstance that we were getting a fair number of serious complaints from students about being either forced or embarrassed out of rooms by roommates having overnight guests or having sex while the roommate was in the room,” he said. “It was an effort to empower the students. it says, ‘You don’t have to be embarrassed for saying no because there are rules that govern conduct in the residence halls.'”

But Coseglia said the policy is a matter of how much responsibility administrators think students have.

“Students should be treated like adults, not children,” he said.

Coseglia said students are frustrated by inconsistencies in current BU policies which allow students full access to South Campus and Bay State Road residences at all hours while restricting access to other residences.

He said the Guest Policy also has a large bearing on student pride in BU, a fact that will help convince administrators of the need for a change.

“We want students to be proud of BU, but it’s hard to be proud when there’s something like this,” he said. “If we want to be proud, we have to talk, we have to compromise and we have to change things.”

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