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BETTER STRANGERS: The Guest Policy – Part One

With less than two months left before the end of its term, the Student Union has released the details of its definitive assault on the University’s Guest Policy. The Union’s proposal, rumored to be approaching 200 pages in length, covers many aspects of the ongoing Guest Policy struggle, including more than a thousand student surveys, 200 student perspectives and interviews with BU officials and police. So, with all its preparation, is the smell of change in the air? Probably not.

The one thing the Union’s proposal lacks is a realistic evaluation of the Guest Policy — not the actual times and numbers behind who can visit and when, but rather the motivations of the administration. We can throw statistics at President Jon Westling until we are blue in the face, but unless we know the real motivation behind the policy, we will never be able to change it.

That motivation is the most important element of this debate. The administration constantly cites two factors as the motivation for our guest policy: studying and sex. The administration has stated our Guest Policy is designed to eliminate distractions for students who want to study, as well as to eliminate “uncomfortable” and “embarrassing” situations that arise from sexual activity. In other words, the Guest Policy exists to keep your roommate from having sex in the room while you are trying to study.

However, the logic behind that is inherently flawed. After all, the Student Village apartments at 10 Buick St. are entirely single bedrooms, giving students both a place to study in peace and have sex in private. But, as we all know, the Student Village suffers from the exact same security as Warren Towers. At the same time, the majority of the brownstones on campus are double and triple rooms (and, in some cases, even quads). Yet, there is no Guest Policy whatsoever for brownstones. That means up to three of your roommates could be having sex in the room while you are trying to study, and the University is doing nothing to stop it. Clearly, the administration is not nearly as concerned as it claims to be.

If the administration really wants to protect the students from sex and distraction, it would have to put guards at every single door to every single room. Warren Towers has 1,800 students living in it. Does the administration honestly believe that all of those students are celibate and deep in study because they can’t have friends over past 2:30 a.m.? Odds are at least one boy from A tower is dating at least one girl from C tower. It is naive to believe the Guest Policy will eliminate sex in any dorm. The Guest Policy doesn’t eliminate sex, it just narrows down whom you will have sex with. Ironically, the residences with the least students, and therefore the least options for shacking up, are the brownstones, but those don’t have security, anyway.

Furthermore, every dorm with security also has study extensions. Does the administration really believe every student on that list is there to study? Study extensions give students a license to do everything that the administration wants to curtail. That is, until 8:00 a.m., when the study extension expires. Fortunately, that coincides with the exact time that students can begin to sign in again. Well, at least your roommate got five minutes of peace and quiet in there.

The only way to eliminate sex in the dorms is to make all dorms single sex and not allow visitors of the other sex in at any time. However, even though the sex would be gone, your roommate could still have several friends over to disrupt your studying.

Why is the administration trying to solve our problems? If your roommate brings his friends over when you are studying, do you really need John Silber to tell your roommate that you have a test the next day and you need to concentrate? If your roommate comes home one day and catches you and your significant other in a compromising position, should President Westling be the one to tell you it makes your roommate uncomfortable?

While the administration claims it is helping the students by eliminating these problems, it is in fact hurting us more than it can comprehend. We are college students — adults by law. Shouldn’t we have the ability to handle our own problems on our own? If we are old enough to live in a dorm, we are old enough to tell our roommate that we need peace and quiet. These are people skills — life skills. If we don’t learn to communicate with people now, when will we? Students should be able to resolve their conflicts if and when they happen, instead of having big brother step in and keep them in a utopian world.

But we’re not even dealing with two concerns at all. Studying, sex — it all boils down to one simple concept: roommate consideration. Or just respecting your roommate’s space. However, the administration can’t call it that, because then it becomes an issue students could resolve, and if we can resolve it, then their policy is pointless. These are empty arguments, created solely to deflect attention from the real motivation behind the Guest Policy. The truth is the administration has other reason for keeping the Guest Policy in place, and they are reasons that don’t involve us.

First and foremost, the Guest Policy is a great marketing tool. Parents love to hear about how safe our dorms are because we have the most stringent security of any Boston school. In addition, BU is over 60 percent female. In general, parents of female students want tighter security, especially on a city campus. Regardless, the security is a major draw for parents of freshmen, and that is whom the University is courting. In addition, it doesn’t hurt to trot out that policy when it comes time to rank colleges in major magazines. A policy like ours can bump us up a few notches, simply because it appears safe.

The Boston University Guest Policy is purely for show. It is a banner that can be brandished before nervous parents and journalists. The very nature of the policy — the all-or-none dorm/brownstone split — is enough to alert everybody of the hypocrisy at work. Every student on campus knows how to get around the security, be it study extensions or having your friend swipe in for a meal and just stay over. And the policy has managed to let at least two rapes occur on campus: the first by a non-student who broke in, and the second by a student in her own residence. Enough is enough. The administration needs to take a deep breath and then admit that the students are right. Change the policy and end this ridiculous red tape that protects no one and only manages to keep students from being students.

Next week, I will actually explore possible changes and alternatives for the Guest Policy. There are an infinite number of ways we can alter the existing policy, but we need to work together on this. Please email me over the week with suggestions at gmyers@bu.edu. Anything from an idea to an entirely new system — we need ideas. We need to show the administration that we have a direction to go in. They already know that we want change; now we need to tell them what that change is.

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