On the Proposed Vs Policy

Last week, there was a whirlwind of gossip regarding the proposed Visitation (Vs) policy. Some said that you had to keep your door open all the time, some said that you had to check in every time you went to someone else’s dorm and some spoke of not being allowed to enter another person’s room until after check in. The one thing that all of these rumors had in common was that they all expressed disdain for the lack of privacy this Vs policy would entail. Sharing the curiosity of my peers, I looked into the Vs policy myself. I expected myself to hate it, the way many of my friends did. I expected to see a policy that would abolish my privacy and do nothing but harm my sad attempts at a love life. Instead, I found a policy that was constructive and inclusive, bearing no similarities to the rumors that floated around campus. This is not to say that I have no questions regarding the Vs policy, but the objective of this new policy was to be more inclusive of all sexual orientations, something I think StuCo has achieved.

When I read the Vs policy, the first things that caught my eye were the proposed hours of Vs (from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. on a school night), and that students would have to sign in upon entry. This brings me to my first question: will there be any faculty monitoring during the week? Is this meant to combat illegal Vs? In the proposed policy, it also says that the door to the room must be kept open. This seems to be the source of the complaints of “lack of privacy.” However, what students seem to miss is that it also says that members of the same dorm may request to close the door if there is a conversation you want to have privately.

This is a policy that I think does a great job balancing the privacy of students and the inclusivity of sexual orientation. The current Vs policy has been in place for a long time, so it has been fully integrated into Exeter culture. However, it is also heteronormative, something that this new policy is trying to fight. People claim that same sex couples are given a privilege within the current Vs policy, the same Vs policy that doesn’t address the existence of same-sex relationships. Wow, what a privilege, right? I believe that this new policy does a great job of acknowledging same-sex relationships without forcing them to out themselves. As for the “lack of privacy,” I personally don’t think that this new policy restricts your privacy more than our current policy. You’re allowed to close the door with faculty permission before 9 p.m., and after that time you are free to roam the dorm, entering whichever room you please. It isn’t the constraining policy that everyone has made it out to be; it’s a policy that acknowledges that same-sex couples exist, and that they deserve the same coverage as heterosexual couples in the Vs policy. I think that trying to be more inclusive has more weight than a door being cracked open until 9 p.m., and that’s what everyone should take from this policy: the steps we’re taking to becoming a more inclusive school, not that your door will be cracked open until 9 p.m. if you happen to have a visitor.