Dean's Office Implements End-of-Year Changes
As the year draws to a close, students and faculty are now faced with the challenge of summer storage. With many students on campus owning various furniture such as couches and TVs, storing these items for the summer has been a challenge for some students with the recent closing of Dow Barn, an additional storage spot for students on financial aid located behind Dow House. At the same time, a number of changes have been made this year to ease the process of packing up for the summer and to enforce the school’s packing policy.
One of the biggest changes this year is the implementation of a packing block after finals end this Wednesday. Students will be required to check into their dorms at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday and will not be allowed to check out until they are fully packed for the summer. Students who don't show up will receive dickeys and will have to check in to their dorms at eight o'clock.
Dean of Residential Life AJ Cosgrove explained the reasoning behind this dorm block.
"We are doing this because as a community we feel like students have a responsibility to leave the space the way they found it," he said. "So we think there is some value in that message. Exonians are placed in a situation where they are doing an enormous amount of work at the end of the year, and in many dorms, the hallways and common rooms are just trashed.”
Cosgrove hoped that the policy will better serve the Academy’s cleaning staff. “People are using common spaces as receptacles for belongings they don't want, and we are going to put an end to it. It is not the custodians job to pick up belongings that people leave behind,” he said.
He went on to add that the block can also serve as a way to unify dorms for a few hours and encourage them to get their work done ahead of time so they can enjoy themselves after finally finishing the school year.
“It is also an opportunity as a school for everybody, other than day students, to do something together," Cosgrove said. "We also hope that for the student body, it will allow them to get their work done ahead of time so they are not doing it all night. Maybe they can use some of their free time to enjoy one another instead of packing.”
The dorm packing block is also intended to give students an incentive to pack up their belongings quickly and thoroughly, because after students' rooms are checked and approved, they are allowed to check out of their dorms until ten o'clock and say goodbye to their friends.
Students have found a variety of ways to store and pack up their belongings for the summer. Some students are simply bringing all their belongings back home via car. Some students have stored their belongings in facilities near campus. Others, like upper Rachel Sachs, are using Exeter Packaging and mailing their belongings home.
“This year, I'm mailing my stuff home through Exeter Packaging; although in the past my dad has rented a big van and we've driven home with everything,” Sachs said.
Another change for the end of the year clean up will be the closing of Dow Barn. Each student was allowed to bring two personal items which would be stored in the barn over the summer, but students began to abuse these privileges, Dean of Students Melissa Mischke, said.
“Last year, people took advantage of financial aid students or used their friends to store furniture that was for the financial aid students,” Mischke said. “I could be wrong in saying taken advantage of, it could be that their friends let them use their space. But we had more furniture than we had ever had before and it was a system that was broken. We didn't really have enough room in the barn to store all of the material.”
Dow Barn also experienced a crisis with bed bugs last summer. One of the couches stored had come from a room infested with bed bugs, yet the faculty were not aware which couch was infected. They were faced with the decision to either dispose of all the furniture or return it all to the students and risk the rest of the campus becoming infected with bed bugs. In the end, the Academy decided to destroy all the furniture to prevent a bed bug epidemic across campus. The Academy had warned students that they could store their belongings in Dow Barn at their own risk and the Academy would not be liable for any damaged belongings. As a result, there were no compensations for the students who lost furniture.
Dow Barn has experienced two big difficulties: properly storing the amount of furniture it receives and guaranteeing that student furniture will be in the same condition it was before the summer. Given those two complications, the Academy has decided that Dow Barn is unmanageable.
“I consider that a catastrophic problem, it was such an unfortunate thing for the people we were trying to be helpful with,” Mischke said. “I do not want us to be in that position again and I don't think the school would want us in that position again. We were trying to be helpful and it ended up being far more hurtful.”
In fact, the Academy has asked students not to bring furniture to campus, especially upholstered furniture, in order to prevent a bed bug epidemic in the dorms and to encourage students to only bring items that they can handle in terms of storage. However, Mischke said some students have brought furniture anyways. As a result, the Academy is considering implementing a fine next year for anybody that brings furniture to campus and does not remove it for the summer.