STUDENT LIFE ‘mdash; Living on campus at UCSD means being held to legalistic policies in need of revision, as implemented by residence life offices that are sorely out of touch with the student body. Residence life offices must address this by working harder to publicize students’ rights when it comes to substance abuse violations.
Given the fact that UCSD is a public institution that’s responsible for enforcing California state law, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that alcohol consumption by those under 21 years of age is frowned upon ‘mdash; in fact, the clause outlining the prohibition of alcohol in university housing is one of the garbled code’s clearest statements. ‘ ‘ ‘ Resident deans from five of the six colleges (Warren Resident Dean Claire Palmer was unavailable for comment) said they believe the current nonacademic misconduct process (the write-up process) to be more educational than punitive. But based on the most recent Undergraduate Student Experience and Satisfaction committee report (published in September 2005 to outline everything students think is wrong with the university) and current collective student sentiment, that’s really not the case.
The U.S.E.S. report highlights students’ issues with residential security officers ‘mdash; they inspire fear in students and their duty should be to assure safety, not to police dorms. Resident deans from John Muir, Eleanor Roosevelt, Roger Revelle and Sixth Colleges agree with the latter sentiment ‘mdash; but they also don’t see any issues wi
th the way RSOs currently do their jobs, despite the plain evidence that students do.
Each of the resident deans also said their offices ensure that students know how they can respond to write-ups. While Revelle College Resident Dean Malik Ishmael went so far as to say he doesn’t know what more the university could possibly do to inform students of their rights, Pat Danylyshyn-Adams, resident dean of Muir College, said she feels students probably aren’t aware of certain steps they can take in their own defense ‘mdash; such as filing complaints against RSOs. She also said the administration needs to evaluate its outreach and clarity for students’ sake.
Frank Carroll, A.S. associate vice president of student advocacy, for one, is doing his part to reach out to students. His office is beginning a Know Your Rights campaign regarding substance abuse and RSOs leading up to the Sun God Festival, though Carroll said future campaigns, perhaps during Welcome Week, will focus more on residence life. He said one of the chief concerns of his office involves RSOs’ violation of the Fourth Amendment (for the less legalistically inclined, the fundamental American right preventing unlawful searches and seizures). Students aren’t obligated to allow RSOs entry into their living area, but currently RSOs have the power to forcibly enter any living area under the guise of a ‘health and safety check.’
If residence life offices really were doing their very best job of informing students, these efforts would be superfluous.
When a student is found in possession of, say, a ‘party ball’ (the conduct code doesn’t explicitly state what exactly one of these is, but from context we can deduce that it’s some kind of container with a lot of alcohol), seldom is he aware of what kinds of repercussions will follow. The write-up process he faces can by turns be confusing, intimidating or painstakingly slow.
The residence life offices don’t contact the student with any information during the weeks that pass between the write-up and the next step ‘mdash; an e-mail parcel notification, in which case the parcel is actually the student’s misconduct report. Such reports include a description of what the RSO who caught Johnny Keg-lover observed.
But before the individual report is delivered to Johnny, he knows nothing of the kinds of charges he stands to face, or the consequences of those charges.
In fact, once the report is delivered, accompanied by a brochure called ‘Essential Information Pertaining to an Allegation of Non-Academic Misconduct,’ Johnny’s only made aware of a list of possible outcomes of his alleged misconduct, ranging from a warning to suspension; but there’s no specification whatsoever of which outcome might fit his crime.
In order for the write-up process to actually be educational in practice, residence life offices must do just that: educate. Freshmen are likely to be confused by the legalistic language of the Student Conduct Code; resident deans should post clear, user-friendly descriptions of the write-up process in individual freshman suites each year; that way, there would be a clear, omnipresent reminder of what exactly students can expect if they’re unfortunate enough to be written up. Residence life offices could also instruct the RAs to hold quarterly suite meetings explaining this very process, and the rights that students have throughout each of its stages.
Students must be made aware that they’re not required to allow RSOs access to their room or suite, and that the best move is typically to step outside with an RSO to civilly discuss whatever the issue appears to be.
Realistically, when an RSO announces his presence, students are going to be intimidated ‘mdash; which is why it’s so important that they know how the process works before that knock on the door even occurs. Other, even smaller steps, such as composing a standard e-mail to send to accused students rather than a preposterous parcel notification, would increase the transparency of the write-up process. Small steps like these to optimize transparency could go a long way in improving student attitudes toward this disciplinary ‘mdash; sorry, ‘educational’ ‘mdash; process. And being that the goal of the whole nonacademic misconduct process is education, it seems only fair for residence life offices to fully inform students.
An as-yet unnamed committee, under Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Penny Rue, will soon be entirely rewriting the Student Conduct Code to increase its clarity and accessibility over the next 18 months.
But the efforts shouldn’t stop there ‘mdash; if this process is to become truly educational, residence life offices must do more to ensure that students know their rights.
Readers can contact Trevor Cox at [email protected].