I don’t know anything about the safety rules. What are they?” asked a Guilford senior, who wishes to remain anonymous. A group of first-year and sophomore students sitting on the stoop of Binford hall laughed and nodded.
Interviews with students from every class and residential lifestyle revealed a widespread ignorance of basic safety policies.
…This ignorance, combined with the resignation of Safety Manager Jeff Vail just days before the start of the fall semester, has thrown residential safety into what Dean for Campus Life Anne Lundquist described as a “transitional period.”
Guilford is currently operating without a safety manager. Not having a safety manager should not greatly affect student safety, said Lundquist.
She notes that a safety manager is often more concerned with bureaucratic safety procedures than in maintaining residential safety. Safety is a collaborative effort between Public Safety, the RA’s, and the administration, she added.
Vail, who has taken a job as safety manager in the private sector, emphasized that his resignation was unrelated to the Guilford working environment. [Director of Facilities and Campus Services] “John Varnell was the best guy in the world to work for,” Vail said. The office of Facilities and Services has been reviewing applications, but has not yet hired a replacement.
The bureaucratic safety procedures that were Vail’s purview are starting to confuse students. From first-years living in Milner to seniors living in alternative housing on-campus, students expressed concern and confusion about two safety policies: occupancy codes and social gathering permits.
Occupancy codes, which determine how many students can be in each room at the same time, have not been published. Social gathering permits are required to host a party on-campus, but the Office of Campus Life is not issuing them.
Although they vary between residence halls, occupancy codes generally prohibit more than eight students from simultaneously spending time in a residence hall room or the common room in a suite.
Consideration factors including room size and the number of exits determine the number of people allowed in a room.
“(The codes) should be published. That would be good for everyone,” said Vail, in a telephone interview.
“We need to post them in the buildings … (but) it’s not (Campus Life’s) responsibility to publish them,” said Lundquist.
The administration has not yet decided whether The Office of Campus Life, Residential Life, or Public Safety should be responsible for the codes. No one has made plans to publish them.
The social-gathering-permit policy also confuses some students. According to Fire Safety rules, students living on campus are prohibited from hosting parties with more than eight guests without a social gathering permit.
“At this point, we are not going to have social gathering permits,” said Lundquist, citing the lack of a safety manager and other transitions the school has had to face as the cause.
Currently, any on-campus party is a violation of safety codes, and can result in a charge before the school judicial system. Every student charged with violation of the safety codes last year was found guilty, according to Judicial Charge Disposition records. The most common punishment for safety code violations in the same school year was disciplinary probation.
In a majority of cases, fire safety violations were secondary to a more serious infraction, such as possession of drugs or alcohol.
Senior Adam Heffler, who lives in an apartment on campus, questioned the reality of following the current Social Gathering Policy given the spontaneity of apartment living.
“You never know when people are going to show up…most likely, I’ll still have a party,” he said.