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November 7, 2003

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Fall semester proves typical

This has been a typical semester in campus life. That’s too bad – I had hoped for better.

Every semester produces its own set of disheartening issues outside of the classroom. Some of this fall’s incidents include alleged use of date rape drugs, racial slurs, sexual misconduct, drug incidents, drunken students cursing out Alamo Stadium parking attendants, and a Campus Safety officer nearly being run down by an angry student driver.

Our property hasn’t fared much better, with weekly damage to a parking gate behind Witt Hall, stolen golf carts, discharged fire extinguishers and stolen residence hall furniture (though much of it is bolted down).

Despite the new alcohol policy, it seems that the emphasis on “responsible drinking” has been interpreted as “the more the better, as often as possible.”

Student Court hears one or two residence hall party cases per week. Parties off campus dominate the social scene. Students and parents express growing concern and frustration about alcohol and the disruptive problems associated with it, including noise, trash and belligerence toward roommates and others.

Alcohol is a part of college life we know; so we live with its consequences, and ironically accept them as the price we pay for being an institution of higher learning. And we do pay.

We are blessed to be at this excellent, prestigious University, filled with bright, driven, courageous, energetic and engaging students.

Trinity students care about the world around them and care deeply for each other. There is tremendous good in the work of our student organizations, from campus programs, to programs conducted by TUVAC, and Greek projects that benefit charity. Our students show amazing leadership, on and off campus, and their diverse skills shine in the classroom, the arts, the playing fields and beyond.

This makes the contrast that much sharper, then, given some of the things our students do to each other and our campus neighbors. Part of our mission is to provide an environment that is a safe one where students can make mistakes, learn from them and mature. Perhaps it is too safe. It is somehow OK on college campuses, Trinity among them, to tolerate the intolerable, to accept the bad with the good.

We will soon roll out our honor code, hoping that academic cheating will decline. The spirit of the code shouldn’t begin and end in the classroom though; it should be a part of everyday life on this campus.

Every semester produces its own set of disheartening issues outside of the classroom. Some of this fall’s incidents include alleged use of date rape drugs, racial slurs, sexual misconduct, drug incidents, drunken students cursing out Alamo Stadium parking attendants, and a Campus Safety officer nearly being run down by an angry student driver.

An academic community should be especially respectful and honorable, naturally, without needing rules to impose that honor. And the students who understand that need to lead the ones who don’t.

Of course college students across the country will abuse alcohol, date rape one another, haze one another, and in so many other unhealthy ways, test their limits and the limits of others. These things happen everywhere – they always have.

So what about us? Despite our excellence, and our aspirations, are we comfortable being grouped with the rest? We can be so much better. Or we can be typical.

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