Minority Report:We don't need a residency requirement

I lived on campus for two and a half years. My first two years were spent in East Laville, and my second semester of my junior year was spent in Louise Gehrig. On a whole, I was lucky. At the Honors College I had the opportunity to make strong friendships, many of which endure to this day and inculcate myself to University culture. As for Louise Gehrig, well, at least I only had to share a shower with three guys, and my roommate and his girlfriend were charming. Despite my enjoyable experiences as a student in on-campus housing, I oppose a mandatory freshman residency requirement. The backers of this proposal claim that it will foster a greater sense of a campus unity and allow students to build new relationships and settle into college. Well, that's their opinion. Does that make it valid? The other major thrust of the argument is that "peer" universities also require freshmen to live on campus. Using our football conference as a guide, half of the 12 universities will mandate freshmen housing, including Georgia and Vanderbilt by 2008. On the other hand, their number includes such sterling academic wonderlands as Mississippi State University, which will be the newest institution to adopt mandatory housing. Universities which allow students the choice of remaining off campus include the University of Florida and Auburn University. I'd wager that, given a choice, most freshmen would not choose to operate under this system. Even the Student Government Senate has raised its voice against the proposal, passing a resolution 33-9 against the proposed requirement. Of course, I'm sure this vote will be as influential as its resolution against Iranian nuclear weapons last fall. As for any freshmen opposition, this naturally proves nothing. If put to a vote, freshmen would vote themselves free beer for life, football games every day and turning Rapheal Semmes Road into Bourbon Street. This would lead to a semester of alcohol poisoning and sleeping through 3 p.m. classes, with a dash of streaking, flashing and failing grades sent home to the farm. Let us move on. In all events I oppose and believe others should oppose this proposed requirement on the notion that compelling students to live somewhere is not the business of the University. Living on campus is not for everyone. There are some who find communal living to be both invasive of their privacy and a detriment to their working environment. Even in the supposedly "substance free" East Laville Hall, I was awakened by my neighbors across the hall having Febreeze fights, sledding down the hall on cookie sheets and knocking on my door repeatedly. And that was on just one special evening. Needless to say, I blame all of this on my lackluster grades and acerbic personality. Having lived off campus for more than a year now, I have found I enjoy my rights much more than I ever did on campus. I can smoke cigarettes in my apartment without fear of fines. As an adult, I can have alcoholic beverages in my apartment if I so choose, as well as halogen lamps, hot plates and anything else declared verboten by the powers that be in Residential Life. I could even have female guests stay after "curfew." Finally, perhaps the greatest challenge I can think of for this proposed policy is that it retards the progress a young adult needs to make in order to grow up. Living on campus can be fun, but, at least for me, I found it to be an extension of living at home, albeit with the ability to leave my cigarettes on my desk instead of in my car trunk. I have learned a good deal more about myself living alone than I did on campus. I attribute it to the general fact that, at the end of the day, after everyone else has gone to bed, you're always alone anyway. Requiring freshmen to live on campus will not strengthen a sense of community. I fear it will put more and more students who have no desire to ever have lived on campus in miserable proximity with those who chose to be there. The friends we make and the lives that we lead are our own. The University should not dictate the living patterns of those who it would trust to live adult lives. We must all be free to make our own paths in this world, no matter how young and vulnerable we are.

----- Contact Ryan Merryman at rmerryman@lsureveille.com