Dorms Hire Extra Adults
In order to alleviate responsibility from existing dorm faculty affiliates and to foster student-faculty interactions, the Academy Life Task Force has retained faculty spouses, staff and others in the PEA community to serve dorm duty in multiple dormitories.
This new dorm duty policy was proposed last spring and put in place this term. It increases adult supervision in dorms and is one of the many recent initiatives for student safety and well-being introduced this school year, such as postponing dormitory leave time to 6 a.m., inhibiting fatigues on Mondays and dorms such as Wheelwright Hall toughening restrictions on their residents.
“Currently, during unsupervised hours, students could inadvertently be putting themselves in uncomfortable situations,” Vitolo said. “Extended [dorm duty] could help deter risky behaviors.”
The times that the adults are on duty are flexible and tailored towards each dorm’s needs. “We have left it up to the dorm teams how best to use their sources and to encourage them to think outside the box, whether that means offering faculty to be available for visitations or just for help on Wednesday [afternoons] or Sunday evenings,” Dean of Residential Life Carol Cahalane said.
The policy’s employment of additional duty members is supported by Academy funds allocated for additional staffing. “We hired a dozen additional people who work here on campus or are spouses of people who work on campus,” Cahalane said. “[These are] people who know the community, understand the community and understand the campus.”
Several dorms have already enacted the policy and retained external adults, besides regular dorm affiliates, to serve duty on certain nights of the week.
Bancroft Hall currently employs James Tufts, an Exeter alumnus and longtime Exeter Summer school teacher, to serve dorm duty on Sunday nights. “Last year, we lost [a faculty member], and this year at least one of our faculty members is going to be away for each term,” senior and proctor Isadora Kron said. “We hired Mr. Tufts because otherwise, we would have dorm faculty sometimes serving duty for two days a week, which isn’t good.”
Cahalane said that this policy was not created by fears of illegal visitations on Wednesday and weekend afternoons and is flexible to adapt as individual dorms see fit. “[The policy was developed] in the spirit of experimentation—we want to allow each dorm to experiment what should be done and what works best,” she said.
Marissa Vitolo, a local public high school educator who now serves duty in Lamont Hall, believed that this policy, which grants extended visitations hours on Wednesday and weekend afternoons, would facilitate a safer environment for students. “Currently, during unsupervised hours, students could inadvertently be putting themselves in uncomfortable situations,” Vitolo said. “Extended [dorm duty] could help deter risky behaviors.”
In fact, senior Bob*, expressed that he would no longer be able to easily get illegal visitations on Wednesday afternoons. “Wednesday afternoons are my favorite time to get illegal V’s, and now that’s going to be much harder because there is an adult present,” he said.
Senior and Student Council President Elizabeth Yang is concerned that this policy change could cause shifts in dorm culture. “I think part of the dorm experience is having the dorm faculty as your parents,” Yang said. “Having more people who are not as involved with Exeter doing dorm duty might change the relationship that students have with the adult figures of their residential life.”
Cahalane, however, looks forward to the implementation of the new dorm duty policy. “I’m excited to have this new innovation,” Cahalane said. “[It will] emphasize that Exeter is a place where we think about how to best serve our students.”
* Asterisks denote name change to protect anonymity