As the written and verbal invectives over the greek issues fly across campus, I’d like to draw your attention to a little noticed modification being made to The RPI Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities. This modification will extend RPI’s authority to students involved in inappropriate behavior off-campus—even if the victim is not a fellow student and even if the student has not used his RPI status to commit the offense.
In a refreshing change of pace, this policy was revealed to student representatives before its implementation—for which, I suppose, we should be grateful. But the Dean of Students Office dropped the ball. The changes were never made known in any sort of final form to the Student Senate. On April 15, the opportunity to approve or disprove the changes expired, though I’m told that that wouldn’t have changed anything. The handbook with the greatly expanded DOSO jurisdiction will be coming out over the summer.
Though Vice President for Student Life Eddie Knowles insists the policy will not be abused and is intended to keep RPI’s image untarnished and students safe, I don’t think I’m prepared to trust the very same administrators that have spent the last few months arrogantly misleading student government, while waiting for it to be at its weakest—during election time.
Like many of our rules, this new change in particular was likely prompted by some incidents involving students that could have potentially bad public relations consequences for the Institute—the recent stabbing and DWI incidents being prime examples. Though I am somewhat sympathetic to the victims of such unfortunate incidents, I have never liked the idea of these reactionary rules, here or in the federal government.
The real problem is that RPI has decided, after decades of documents and statements to the contrary, that students cannot be trusted to give input into the issues affecting them. Dr. Knowles’ apology to the Senate notwithstanding, he offered no response to my question of whether anything was being done to prevent student government from being marginalized in the future. In fact, the implication was that next time a critical issue comes up, excuses will be made—student safety in this case (remember that Ben Franklin quote about liberty and safety?)—and unilateral policies will again be imposed. In the future, I’d ask student government to examine all of its documents and appointments to be sure that the DOSO never has the opportunity for this kind of liberal
’Tute screw application again as they have had so many times in the past three weeks.
So, we have a handbook policy addition that was given insufficient time for students to review, and it will be implemented unless students take some action. This won’t be an easy concession to win, as we’ll have to wait two more years for the next revision. But if the change appears in the fall, your elected representatives will have to decide how valid a handbook published against our collective will is; I would contend that it has no validity whatsoever.
