<p>The op starts off saying that he hasn't seen his roommate for three days and the majority of the kids seem to think that it's a good thing because now the dorm room is bigger!</p>
<p>All I can think of is last year when Taylor Behl disappeared from VCU and whose body was found a month later...</p>
<p>I had the same reaction. I guess some students are so wrapped up in their own lives that they don't realize the dangers that are in the world.</p>
<p>I find the majority of the responses on that thread scary. I would hope someone would be concerned enough to report a student missing for three days to at least the RA.</p>
<p>I thought I was the only one creeped out, phew!!!</p>
<p>yeah, I feel the same way as you all....</p>
<p>scary huh, so little caring about others...cause if they ain't your best friend, what difference does it make</p>
<p>bet their mama's would not be proud</p>
<p>It's extremely easy for a Hall Director to look up the last time a student's ID was swiped, whether that was to unlock a door or buy something at the dining hall.</p>
<p>My H went to Oberlin in late 60'2-early 70's. He says he basically "never" saw his first year roommate. He made friends and roomed with friends thereafter, but it sounds like this guy was MIA most of the year.</p>
<p>It would be nice if roommates set up basic communication standards, but I have to agree with the kids who say that they haven't signed up to be someone's parent. As a citizen of the world, yes, report an absence to an RA if you're concerned (and bless you for being concerned) but you can't control roommate behavior.</p>
<p>Many of the students at the school I work at live in easy commuting distance, and I've talked to some that came in moving day, then went back home for the next few days. They look at their dorm rooms as more of a sometimes place to live. It would never occur to anyone else to think that someone was "missing" if they didn't make an appearance for a few days. Maybe this one lives closer, too.</p>
<p>there is a huge difference between between trying to control someones behavior and worrying if they don't turn up for 3 days, with all their books in a room</p>
<p>if you were working, and a coworker didnt show uo for three days, would you think, gee this is odd</p>
<p>it is amazing to me that people do not see the difference between being noisy and a busy buddy and concern for someone you haven';t seen or heard from for days and days</p>
<p>and so what if a roommate goes to the RA and says hey fyi, probably no big deal but Becky hasn'[t been around for 3 days, and her books are there and she hasn't come for any clothes...then the RA can decide what to do, if anything</p>
<p>but hey, of your D doesnt show up st her dorm for a week, who cares, right?</p>
<p>I'm with you cgm, it's not like you are stalking your roommate if you show minimum concern for their safety. I find it a very strange mindset to think that someone was probably okay if their books and bed were not touched for three days, especially at the beginning of a school year. Why would it be overboard to have the slightest concern for someone that could be in danger? Is this something else I need to talk to my son about, hey, if your roommate is gone for two days, and no one knows where he is, tell the RA. Isn't that expected behavior??</p>
<p>We can only hope that the uncaring posters on that thread are not representative of most college students. </p>
<p>Weeks ago I mentioned to my D that she should tell her roomate what her general plans are as a common courtesy and as a safety measure. She seemed to understand the relevance of the concept.</p>
<p>Clearly, common courtesy is not as common as we might like. How very sad for those kids that they have so little understanding of the basic concept.</p>
<p>It's a safety issue. My S and his roommates have been pretty good with keeping each other informed of their general plans. I think in my son's case, it is out of habit. He never left the house without telling us where he was going and when to expect him back. He is lucky enough that his roommates are the same. They genuinely care for each other.</p>
<p>omg i had a crazy roommate! We both decided that if the other was gone for a long time and DID NOT leave a message to worry. I was out with my best friend talking until really late in the night (like 5am). I left her a note, however, saying that I would be out really late and that if she didnt see me by the next morning when she got up, to then worry. I get back at 5 am and she is just sitting on the bed in the dark waiting for me. It was reallly creepy. Then she lectured me like she was my mother. I can understand being worried, but it was just weird.</p>
<p>With my apartment mates now, if you arent back by 3am and we dont konw where you are, we call you. if you arent back by 4am, we start calling other people to find out where you are.</p>
<p>My freshman year roommate was a sophomore transfer. She quickly made a boyfriend (whom she later married) and spent most of her time with him. I could never guess whether she would be living in his dorm room for weeks at a time or whether she would just show up at our room by surprise one night to sleep in her bed. It honestly never occurred to me to tell anyone she wasn't living in the room: I "knew" she was basically living in her boyfriend's room and we seldom talked even when she was in the room (we had almost nothing in common). So while now, as a parent, I would be horrified if one of my son's roommates hadn't seen him for a week and didn't tell anyone, I can attest from personal experience that it never once occurred to me in the early '70s to tell someone that Maureen hadn't shown up for that length of time. Reading their comments on that thread makes me cringe, but I wonder how much differently I would have responded when <em>I</em> was 18.</p>
<p>Yeah, the world was a lot safer then, or at least we thought so :). But kids don't seem to feel any less invincible than we did.</p>
<p>My neice had to semi-move out of her dorm at GW in the early 90s, just so she could have some place quiet to study. Roommates were heavy partiers. I'm sure she must have told someone, but it sure wasn't her mom or her aunt.</p>
<p>There seemed to be a concern that the missing student would be angry if the RA was told about the absence. Not sure about that one. The RA can be asked not to mention the report and just say he/she noticed the absence. It is true that at college level roommates do not have to report to each other, and it is not the responsibility of one to keep tabs on the others' whereabouts. But it is just common courtesy and intelligence to bring up anything unusual. If your roommate is one who ends up disappearing for days at a time on a regular basis, it no longer becomes an anomaly. That you do not yet know if that is the case, makes it a possibility that something may have happened. As I posted on that forum, even if they don't care about the roommate or possibilities of what may be happening, they will look awfully foolish and like complete jerks, if something horribly newsworthy occurred, and all the OP did was wonder on a message board if something was up. Even if he indeed is not his "brother's keeper".</p>
<p>For me, the message of this thread is that roommates should ideally work out an understanding about this. If they want to go their own way and basically almost never show up in their dorm room because they've found friends to live with elsewhere, it makes no sense for the kid who is living in the dorm room fulltime to try to keep tabs on the perrennially missing "Roommate". It would be a fulltime job. However, if the roommate really lives in that dorm room and generally shows up every night (or morning), then a 3 day unnanounced absence is a whole other matter.</p>
<p>There definitely are situations where roommates disappear for days on end and nobody thinks twice about it. Usually, these either involve a person who has a boyfriend or girlfriend or someone who lives near campus and who often goes home instead of sleeping in the dorm. </p>
<p>My son had a roommate for one semester who was in the first category -- this guy spent huge amounts of time with his girlfriend and often stayed at her place overnight without mentioning it to my son, who quickly learned that it was entirely normal. And at my son's school, which is the University of Maryland at College Park, there are many students who officially live on campus but whose families live within an hour's drive. It is common for these students to go home overnight or for a weekend, often with no advance notice, and nobody pays any attention to it. In fact, my son is coming home one night next week in order to go to a medical appointment the next morning, but he's unlikely to mention this to his roommates unless I remind him to do so.</p>
<p>I suspect that the OP on that other thread's roommate fits into one of these two categories and that the situation is so ordinary in his eyes that he never imagined that the OP would look at it differently. But there's nothing wrong with the OP being concerned, either. It wouldn't hurt for the OP to mention the situation to the RA, saying, "I realize that he's probably with a girl or that he went home for a few days, but I thought I should mention it anyway in case there's a reason to be concerned." This makes it the RA's problem, rather than the OP's problem, which is always a good thing. The RA probably knows what to do in such situations.</p>
<p>just for the record, i know a lot of those post seemed insensitive and "scary" as many of you put it. but trust me, i'm sure many of the cc'ers would at least tell the RA. i believe many of them told the OP to tell the RA and stop worrying about it. past that, there's not much THEY could do. it's the RA's responsibility after that. do you expect them to start a search party and call the cops?</p>
<p>that is really odd
On the other hand my daughters school the profs email students if they miss a class, so at least somebody would notice if they didn't show up for three days</p>
<p>If someone disappeared- wasn't in class etc for over 48 hours and no one had seen them- there was every indication that all their stuff was in their room- that they hadn't been to class- then yes I would expect them to notify the parents and the police</p>
<p>this is a good reminder to make sure that parents have their student sign release forms so that they * can* be contacted in case of emergency</p>
<p>
[quote]
A missing-person report is not a crime report. Nor does filing a report mean that anyone will go looking for the subject -- there's no law that says adults have to be where someone thinks they should be.</p>
<p>The report is a tripwire to alert police of a possible crime, and in many cases it is a way to reach across time and distance to identify any human remains that might turn up years later, hundreds of miles away.
[/quote]
</p>