Op-Ed: Philosophical Change Needed for Stanford Residential Education

Monday, May 24th, 2010
By Op Ed

The enhanced academic experience, along with the personal, close-knit community fostered by residential education at Stanford is truly unique, and I cannot praise enough its positive impact on my own personal and intellectual development. That being said, my experience as a Resident Assistant this year has convinced me that there needs to be a deep philosophical change in the way Stanford Residential Education operates. Since the majority of Stanford undergraduates live on campus throughout their years as students, Stanford Res. Ed. has the potential to greatly influence our personalities, characters, and understanding of the world.

Given the enormity of the task of facilitating a peaceful and academic learning environment in student dormitories, Resident Assistants (RA’s) – the main points of connection between administrators and residents – are required to attend a three-week training session prior to the beginning of the school year. In order to fulfill its responsibility of “developing the policies, programs, and staffing which support the intellectual, educational, and community-building activities in student residences” students are bombarded with marginally useful seminars and lectures that a majority of Resident Assistants do not attend (attendance is not kept). The result is a student staff that is inadequately prepared to handle the countless issues that arise university dormitories.

As a Resident Assistant, I am deeply concerned with the policies in place to address scenarios common in freshmen dorms – underage drinking, near fatal emergencies, roommate conflicts, and sexual harassment. I will discuss underage drinking as an example.

According to my understanding of the law in the United States, individuals under the age of 21 should not be consuming or purchasing alcohol. During RA training, however, this matter is never directly addressed. Instead, the expectation is that underage freshmen and sophomores will drink regardless, and that it is the RA’s job to deal with it. The illegal activity, however, is not the only problem. In addition to breaking the law, many of these students are belligerent (I have been attacked by a resident) and inconsiderate (I have had to step in urine barefoot to make sure a resident does not fall off his bed). When an ambulance is called for an emergency, there is an unwritten expectation that RA’s will accompany the resident to the hospital for the remainder of the night. Yet instead of tackling the core of the problem through preventative measures, Res. Ed. holds a reactive philosophy. Rather than encouraging students not to drink illegally/irresponsibly, they are taught how to deal with those that drink illegally/irresponsibly. The fact of the matter is, by turning a blind-eye to underage drinking, we are implicitly AND explicitly endorsing illegal and often unethical behavior. To quote an unheeded proposal put forth by a Resident Fellow in Wilbur earlier this year, “Dormitories and student rooms [should not be] “safe havens” from the police or other law enforcement authorities.”

That these policies are out-of-step and need to be updated is a given, and is actually not the crux of the issue. What is more fundamentally problematic is the lack of transparency and student input in formulating rules and policies. This year, I have gone to several Resident Deans for various issues, and have been consistently rebuffed with statements such as “I am sorry you do not agree with our system” and “You have to go through a process.” This begs the question: What is the meaning and role of the term “Assistant” for the Resident Assistant? Rather than heeding our advice, Stanford Residential Education has operated as an independent entity that does not really seek student input or even consider our opinion seriously. The training period at the beginning of the year is helpful for learning what the Resident Deans want from Resident Assistants, but perhaps an orientation from students to administrators might be useful also.

Ultimately, I am writing this article in an effort to help improve the system. I strongly believe Stanford Residential Education has lost touch with its original mission of helping students learn and develop by providing them with support staff who can relate because of their age and stage in life. There is a reason Resident Assistants are students – we have an otherwise unavailable perspective of residential problems. As such, it is vital that residential administrators listen to Resident Assistants rather than follow outdated procedures and protocols that do not take into account the reality of the situation.

Mohammad Ali, Class of 2010
Resident Assistant, Wilbur

adadada
yay. i approve. during the college years a lot of decisions are made that will shape how a person grows up…stanford should not be allowing (and almost encouraging by their purposeful blind eye) these illegal decisions. let’s make stanford a school of dignity and law abiding citizens.
Tamara
There are many problems with ResEd, as with many programs at Stanford, however the training that RAs receive about alcohol is not one of them. The claim that the illegality of underage drinking is never directly addressed during RA training is a complete fallacy. In addition, I think it is vitally important that RAs learn how to deal with situations in which residents have been drinking illegally, because they will be frequent and inevitable occurrences throughout the year. Your argument is similar to those of abstinence-only programs that do not teach safe sex practices.
Ellis
I have a few problems with this article, but my main issue with it is that you don’t even attempt to consider the reasoning behind Stanford’s current policy on underage drinking. Instead, you create a straw man–the current policy has no thought or reasoning behind it–and claim that your opinion–that these policies need to be dramatically changed–is a given. Don’t you think that Res Ed has put at least some thought into the current policy? I’m not necessarily taking a stance one way or the other as to whether or not this policy should be changed as you suggest (although you could probably guess my position), rather I only mean to suggest that you aren’t being particularly careful or thoughtful in your critique.
T.
As a freshman RA this year (and one who attended every session of RA training last summer), I disagree with some of the points you raise. The issue of the legality of underage drinking was explicitly addressed a number of times in training, and RAs are charged to remind students of this fact when they observe illegal behavior. Furthermore, we are expected to teach residents how to approach issues such as drinking in a responsible and considerate manner. PHEs and RAs have routinely brought Ralph Castro in and put on other seminars to encourage responsible drinking.
I agree that there are problems with ResEd, including the need for more feedback from resident assistants on ways to improve the system, but the policies surrounding alcohol education is one area that RAs are very well trained to handle in a way that encourages student responsibility and personal growth along with maximizing student safety.
Current RA
As a current RA, I believe that I have been very well trained to deal with alcohol. I remember hours of hours of training regarding the topic, both in a large group and small group setting. I found these sessions to be quite useful throughout the year. In fact, of all the issues encountered as an RA, I feel most confident in issues involving alcohol.
Returning RA
I’m sorry, it sounds like you’ve had a rough year with some belligerent residents. As someone who has cleaned up their fair share of puke and dealt with more than their fair share of drunk and destructive people, you have my sympathy on that count. Though I doubt that you’ve signed on for another year, a word to the wise– you are NOT expected to go to the hospital with your residents, and trying to be a superhero will only burn you out.
That said, I feel like your stance on the alcohol policy is simply your knee-jerk reaction to your bad experience, and not terribly well thought out. I know this is not the ideal that you would like us to strive for, but when American teenagers get to college, they do drink. Yes, it is illegal, and sure, sometimes reminding them of that will discourage them. But creating an atmosphere on campus where drinking is done in secret for fear of being caught only encourages the people who drink to pregame and engage in other unsafe drinking behavior (my friends at other schools have told me that this is the culture around alcohol). I’ll wager the resident who was falling out of bed didn’t drink much in high school and is experimenting now. I know you’d probably rather he didn’t drink at all, but the fact that you knew about it and were able to be there for him means that if he had been in danger, he would have made it to the hospital. You knew about it because non-punitive policies mean people here don’t hide from their RAs– they seek out their assistance in times of need. If what you’re calling for is a larger-scale social change where we fight the appeal and the normality of binge drinking, well and good. But you’re barking up the wrong tree if you think this is ResEd’s problem.
Reader
When I was a freshman in an all-frosh dorm, the staff only asked us to keep our doors open when we were consuming alcohol. Yes, they (and the rest of campus) can ban alcohol from underage students, but this open policy keeps students (who will inevitably drink one way or another) safe in open and secure spaces.