Students React to Revised Vs Policy

The members of Student Council (StuCo) met to discuss the policy committee’s new visitations proposal on Tuesday night. The meeting was a follow- up after the proposal was presented last week.

The idea for the proposal came from English instructors Ellee Dean and Alex Myers in collaboration with Director of Student Activities Joanne Lembo, all three of whom have studied and attended conferences on gender and sexuality inclusivity.

At the beginning of the year, the policy committee presented a list of topics that they believed needed to change in the Exeter community. Among these were mental health, the Post-Instructional Evaluation (PIE) form and the advising system. StuCo then discussed and voted that the visitations (Vs) policy needed to be reformed as well. Following the meeting the two heads of the committee, upper Henrietta Reily and senior Tony Ryou began discussing with members of the administration—Dean of Residential Life AJ Cosgrove, Dean of Students Melissa Mischke and Principal Lisa MacFarlane—and with their support, decided to focus on the visitations policy for this year’s agenda.

“We are currently in the discussion phase, working to fine tune our policy in a way that is acceptable for all members of our community.”

The policy committee has met several times throughout the year in an attempt to reform the current policy. According to Ryou, there are several reasons why the council and committee settled on the topic. He explained how the policy is not respected by the students, not understood by parents and not interpreted the same way by faculty members. Another issue with the “ineffective and out-of-date policy” is that students often break the rules, putting themselves in uncomfortable situations that can lead to sexual assault.

The committee also hopes to address and remove the heteronormative nature of the policy, meaning it assumes that a relationship requiring a visitation is between one who identifies as a male and another who identifies as a female.

“By reforming this ineffective visitations policy, it is our hope that students will feel more safe and equal by not getting entangled in uncomfortable situations, regardless sexuality or gender identity,” Ryou said.

The proposed new visitations policy would allow students to be in their friends’ dorm rooms, regardless of gender, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. The visitor must sign in upon entry and departure and leave the door open. The policy would apply to anyone who visits a dorm in which they do not reside; however, intra-dorm specifics are still being discussed. Ryou’s opinion of the ideal policy would require that all visitations, even intra-dorm visitations, would require the door to be open.

Prep Taylor Robertson was in favor of the new policy. He explained that even though under the current policy someone can close their door with a person of the same sex, that person could be of a different gender or sexuality than them.

He continued to explain how people in the same dorm can be in a relationship and members of the LGBTQ⁺ community aren’t recognized as existing in the current policy.

According to Robertson, most of the queer students on campus are in favor of the change, even though “the current policy gives non-heterosexual students the ability to have sex.”

Lower Nik Stork was also in favor of the policy because it creates equality. “It doesn’t benefit me, but it makes me “‘equal’ to my straight, cis[gender] peers,” Stork said. “I don’t think it’s perfect, but it’s a lot better than what we have now.”

One issue that students addressed with the policy is that they feel as though it takes away their privacy. Many students expressed their concerns for not being able to have a private conversation with a friend in their room.

During the meeting, senior Chris Lee explained how inconvenient it will be for people to get “Vs” for normal encounters with friends, when under the current visitations policy it is normally used between hetersexual couples.

Senior Jordyn Marlin agreed with Lee she asked for the “privacy issue” to be listed as a major con of the policy.

A proposed idea would be to ask the faculty member on duty if you could close the door if you needed privacy, however upper Colin Mulligan raised the potential issue of Exeter’s insurance premium increasing if this was allowed. He said, “It’s a great idea to move away from the more heteronormative culture on our campus, but at this current stage of the new Vs policy it seems that a majority of students will be sacrificing a lot of privacy and convenience.”

Ryou admitted that the heads of policy committee expected confusion and protest from both students and faculty when first introduced to the policy. “We believe and hope, however, that with continued discussion, the community will also see our vision to create a safe and equal environment for all Exonians,” Ryou said.

StuCo president and senior Rebecca Ju said that after doing research in finding a solution that encompasses all of the issues with the current policy, they were excited to hear ideas from Dean and Myers.

The proposed policy is still under refinement and has not been brought to the administration.

“We are currently in the discussion phase, working to fine tune our policy in a way that is acceptable for all members of our community,” Ju said. “We still need to continue the discussion with various groups on campus, before we look to approve it.”