Eddie Hull's decision to suspend the nnual review process for the Spring semester will be damaging for the residential living groups on campus. Efforts have been made to streamline the process, and the recent resolutions passed by Campus Council over the last few semesters with respect to the process have improved the situation.
While there might be positive reactions for the short term, the long term effects will not produce any benefits. Yes, the seniors will not have to hear the same presentation from the Healthy Devil for the fourth year in a row and it will reduce the pressure to schedule events lacking great interest, but residential living groups will no longer be assured of an objective method for evaluating their contributions on campus.
Hull's refusal to explain his decision can only be viewed as a gross violation of our rights as students to be informed about policies that affect our daily lives. The speculation that the decision was related to the citizenship category of annual review is also troubling.
Without annual review, "citizenship" is now the only way in which living groups can be evaluated. It seems that damage reports and noise complaints will be the only information that RLHS will have at its disposable to make future housing placement decisions.
As a member of an on-campus fraternity, I am deeply concerned that the loss of annual review will cause living groups to be subjectively evaluated based upon a few negative incidents, which often involve only one person, rather than on the numerous positive contributions that each living group, as a whole, makes to the campus community.
Kyle McCarter
Pratt '05
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