Our Take on the Vs Policy
Student Council recently voted 63-21 in favor of a new Visitations proposal that would drastically overhaul the current policy, aiming to make it more “effective, safe and inclusive,” and to discourage uncomfortable situations. While the Editorial Board commends Student Council for its efforts to implement a more comprehensive policy and agree with its ideology, we disagree with one major provision: students in the same dorm being required to keep their doors open when visiting each other during the day. We, like many others, strongly urge Student Council and the faculty to reconsider this clause.
The relevant parts of the proposal are reprinted below:
“A student may visit another student’s dorm room from the hours of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (or the earliest check-in time of the students present) on school days and 9 a.m. to check-in on weekends by signing in upon entry and out upon departure. Whenever a student has a visitor, the door to the room must be open and the students in the room must be quiet enough so that students in adjacent rooms are undisturbed.”
“Members of the same dorm must leave the door open, but do not need to sign-in. It is expected that faculty and proctors will keep the environment of these ‘open dorms’ safe, respectful and inclusive.”
“If students feel they must close their doors for the sake of a private conversation, they must contact a dorm faculty member, though approval is entirely up to the discretion of the faculty. Proctors and Student Listeners may also close their doors at their discretion when it is absolutely necessary to fulfill their role as student leaders and confidants. We ask students to keep in mind that closing the door is an exception to the rule and should not be requested with careless or unnecessary frequency.”
The proposal introduces these provisions with the statement that, “As a school which embodies the Harkness method in all its facets, we hope to encourage interaction and conversation between all students, regardless of their sexuality or gender. Fostering these relationships, both in and out of the classroom, is essential to our development as Exonians.”
The Editorial Board heartily agrees with this sentiment, but disagree that it needs to be applied to visitations between members of the same dorm to remain impactful. In fact, we hold that such a provision runs entirely counter to the aforementioned spirit of the policy-reform. Each dorm, through its residents, cultivates relationships and cultures that not only distinguish that dorm within the Exeter community, but continue to bind their constituents long after they have left Exeter’s campus. Requiring students to keep their door open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. impedes the formation of these connections, as students will no longer be able to act and speak freely within their own rooms.
Those who would nonetheless try to enforce their privacy (aided by the practical inability of dorm faculty to monitor visitations for 12 hours a day), would, under this provision, be subject to the disciplinary consequence currently due to an illegal visitation. In our opinion, this would be all-too onerous a punishment of a sincere desire to discuss matters in private, or to play some loud music.
Similarly, while it would be hoped that Student Listeners and Proctors exercise judgement in closing their doors during the day, the foreseeable reality is that many students will abuse this privilege, creating a power dynamic between them and ‘regular’ students, and possibly leading to other students seeking these positions solely for the purpose of being able to keep their door closed during the day.
Of course, the proposal maintains that students would have the option to close their door upon receiving permission from a faculty member to do so. With the potential for faculty members to be mostly unavailable during the day, however, this still does not constitute a saving grace for the rest of the reform.
In addition, we acknowledge that the removal of this clause from the policy could come off as neutering the original ideology behind the policy itself. And yet, we contend that any reform must be justified before a jury of both principles and community interests.
Though this proposal has been passed by Student Council, an all-school survey conducted by upper Abhijay Bhatnagar via his proprietary referendum website indicates that the student community is overwhelmingly against the reform in its current state. 80 percent of those who responded to his survey did not support the proposal; 42 percent of that majority were opposed to the intradorm open-door aspect.
The Editorial Board urges that this proposal, prior to a faculty vote, be considered with greater emphasis on community needs.