Two residents of Niles-Foster house in Friley Hall approached me the other night while I was in Friley. They requested I assist them in what they called the “Save Joe” campaign by relaying a message detailing what they considered to be unfair treatment of a resident by the Department of Residence under their relatively new Fresh Start program.

The basic rules of the Fresh Start program include required involvement in community service and campus organizations, grade point standards, a zero-tolerance policy toward drinking in the dorms regardless of age and a prohibition of opposite-sex guests in dorm rooms after 1 a.m.

Apparently, this particular resident had been caught drinking in his Friley Hall room by campus security employees, and as a result of the Fresh Start Program’s zero tolerance policy toward drinking was being forced to move out of the residence hall.

In response to this, the members of the “Save Joe” campaign had printed up fliers and were asking fellow students to spread the word around in hopes that the DOR would reverse their decision to expel Joe from the residence halls. I, along with many other students, find this new set of rules and regulations applying to every Union Drive Association residence hall and Maple Hall in the Richardson Court Association to be rather heavy-handed, demeaning and harsh. However, I do understand why this program was initiated — money.

Incoming students are one of the largest groups of students populating the residence halls, and for many of these students, it’s their parents who write the checks. Imagine the smiles that light up on a parent’s face when a tour guide says, “None of the students in this residence hall have ever been caught drinking.” I know I’d want my child living there. And this is precisely why the “Save Joe” campaign will fail to save Joe. Randy Alexander, Director of the Department of Residence, doesn’t notice or even care about little signs being hung up all over campus; he cares about the checks coming from his residents that go to fund the DOR’s Master Plan. When the DOR receives checks from members of this campaign and countless other disgruntled students, they receive along with them the message that these students are willing to tolerate the Fresh Start Program.

My advice to the members of the “Save Joe” campaign is this: Show some real solidarity and hit the DOR where it hurts. Move out. And I don’t mean move to Frederiksen Court. I mean completely off campus. And I extend that advice to any other resident who is fed up with Fresh Start.

Now I realize that such an action is easier said than done, but some simple math will illustrate just how much this can hurt the DOR. Looking at a map of Niles-Foster house, it appears that there are 28 dorm rooms on this floor. Now, assuming that students other than the ARC (the DOR’s latest trendy name for an RA) populate 27 of these, there are about 54 paying residents in this house. According to the DOR’s Web site, the rate for a double dorm room is $3,040. If these rooms were to go vacant for an academic year, the cost to the DOR would be about $164,000.

That’s a message I guarantee would not be ignored.

Joseph Arling

Junior

Journalism and Mass Communication