Letter to the Editor: RCs should not function as babysitters

Editors Note: This letter was addressed to the student's Resident Coordinater, David Montag, after Montag sent an e-mail to students explaining the University's policy of proactively breaking up any unregistered event on the Last Day of Classes and stating that the only registered events today are the concerts on Main West. �

� ����I hope you can be up-front about who has so adamantly taken a position against students having an "unauthorized gathering." I hope it is not you. The phrase and the intention strike any rational person as Draconian measures reminiscent of the prohibitions I studied in Dr. Christa John's Hitler class. I hope you realize that in order to foster a broad community of diverse groups this university needs impromptu "gatherings" like the ones that are being prohibited. �

� ����It is unconscionable that this University is planning to proactively implement the outrageous policy of breaking up "events" on the last day of classes where more than one person would be assembled in the presence of alcohol. Many rising male juniors, myself included, have refused to live on campus next year because of the absurd rules and regulations to which on-campus students are subjected. �

� ����I speak confidently for dozens of individuals who resent and despise their residential experience at Duke. It's like living in a circus of the absurd or a frightening Kafka short-story. �

� ����That the University would hire such a large staff of RCs who "have not yet had their job defined beyond its formal description" of babysitting students (RAs, GAs) and enforcing ridiculous regulations is simply beyond thought. �

� ����Spending such an absurd amount of money to "elevate the academic climate" of residential life before explaining or understanding what that means is simply shocking. All this while multiple women have been raped or otherwise assaulted on campus and while students have been held up at knifepoint and robbed in the student center this year alone. �

� ����Why don't RCs do more to police serious threats to security like rape and theft rather than patrol for accepted social norms like the unregistered consumption of alcohol in violation of Duke's inane policy? �

� ����The greatest irony is that when most of the administrators here went to college, their generation was tearing down the "in loco parentis" model of higher education. Returning to university life as school officials, they've systematically rebuilt and extended the reach of overzealous social engineers seeking their own "ideal" campus community that is far from universal. �