<p>Just called housing at AU about the free for all going on in the dorm. They said they are not responsible for the RA. There is an RA director who is supposedly in charge of the RA, but they are not allowed to give out the director’s number. Hence, no one can control these people or activities unless maybe the police is called???</p>
<p>The dorm is like is like a prison of horrors with no one really responsible in charge. At my son’s college, there is an adult couple who watches over the kids every night and checks on everything to make sure it is running properly and the kids are under control. The president of the college and his wife even move into the dorms for a couple of weeks to help the students.</p>
<p>I’m sure she is capable of dealing with her “prison of horrors”.</p>
<p>It is a “prison of horrors” when you can’t go to the hall bathroom without being approached by a drugged up, inebriated buffoon. However, you must support that behavior Mini. It is dangerous for my daughter to snitch on these imbeciles when her RA and RA Director are not doing their jobs. She is capable of being attacked Mini, not solving this!!</p>
<p>She is a very bright, very capable young woman who will figure out what needs to be done just fine. (And if she were my daughter, that’s precisely what I would tell her (in fact, I have) - of course, I trust mine as being both bright and capable.)</p>
<p>By the way, 3 of her friends have already left the university because of what is going down in the dorms. I guess that’s one way for AU to de-triple (:.</p>
<p>I’m glad to hear that she made friends so quickly.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>At least I tell it like it is and do not brush serious problems that affect our kids under the rug.
If you think that humor and denial solves issues, it doesn’t. If more parents and the University would take drinking problems in and outside the dorms seriously maybe they could be alleviated. Sorry you just don’t care. Yeah tell your daughter and I could tell my daughter go solve this on your own. These issues are above them, and it is the responsibility of the University to crack down on this. The kids are not responsible for stopping kids from getting drunk, harrassing people while under the influence in the dorms, disturbing the peace in the dorms. Kids have DIED from alchohol poisoning at a number of the schools. This is not funny or cute Mini. By AU not willing to give out the resident director’s number to us they are preventing a serious problem from being solved. The school knows kids are NOT going to snitch on other kids, RAs, Ra directors etc. for fear of retribution by some empty headed drug alchohol abuser. Get real. This is a cop out big time.</p>
<p>Cadiumred,
YOUR DAUGHTER, can request a change of room assignment after 3 weeks, I believe. My S also on the North side, has reported no such problems on his floor or, he was better able to ignore or handle it. He was able to find alcohol- free activities (this time)! which he participated in with other UC members.
Once again, this problem is not limited to AU and I know ( for a fact ) it’s 50X worse at other schools. Yes, students will drink and abuse drugs, but I truly doubt she will be attacked on her way to the bathroom. If SHE is so concerned then SHE should contact the Dean of Students.</p>
<p>Excuse me, but you know absolutely nothing about me. Are you aware that I deal with alcohol and substance abuse issues for a living (and have for almost 20 years), and specifically with issues dealing with underage drinking? </p>
<p>Your intelligent and capable daughter is perfectly capable of calling up the resident director if she wishes, or e-mailing him. For all I know, she is happily drinking and drugging along with the others. Maybe even having sex with people she doesn’t even know, and is actually telling you, obliquely, what SHE is doing. That’s none of my business. But I doubt very much that you do her much in the way of favors by enabling her. She really is capable of negotiating her own needs without you.</p>
<p>If the ‘prison of horrors’ is just too awful, she can always follow her friends to the community college.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that 3 friends left AU after one day of classes because the dorms were noisy…maybe a bit of hyperbole? I think either you or your daughter is being a little bit melodramatic.</p>
<p>As far as in-room hours go, it’s difficult when roomies are on different schedules to work out an arrangement that works for all three. Does she get along with the other two otherwise? What are the dynamics in her room?</p>
<p>Has your daughter calmly let her roommates know there was a problem, or did she just seethe inwardly? Can she say something along the lines of,“gee, last night i tried to get to sleep because I have early classes, and I couldn’t get to sleep with the lights on…would you mind if we had a lights-out at midnight rule?”</p>
<p>Were the roomies just chilling in the room or were they being deliberately disruptive? It makes a difference because unfortunately the room is home for all 3 of them and all 3 have equal rights to use the room as long as they don’t trample on the rights of the others…and sometimes the majority rules.</p>
<p>I think one of the major adjustments to college life is that the daily rhythm of life changes drastically. Bedtime at home might have been at 10, but I’ve never heard of a dorm that quiets down until between 12 and 1. After classes during the day,most students have clubs/sports/study groups, etc. in the evenings, and then after that come back “home” to chill, socialize, fool around, let steam off, whatever to unwind from the day before bedtime.</p>
<p>I was just about done typing this when my S called for our first real chat. He’s in the South dorms (supposedly wilder?) and said last night things quieted down a lot earlier…he was in bed between 12 and 1. His classes are good but his Wednesday schedule is all screwed up because the computer gave him 3 overlapping labs. He has an appointment to talk with his advisor after he talks with each of his professors to see what alternatives/flexibility is available. His calc professor is willing to be flexible it seems, but his Spanish professor, not so much…so he may need to change Spanish sections to make the labs work out. He and his roomie are getting along fine even though they are very different people. He has persuaded roomie to run with him in the mornings, and roomie is teaching him to play the drums.</p>
<p>It is total complacency to rationalize what has been going on this past week by saying the drinking and drug problems are worse at other colleges. Are you kidding me??? And YES. 3 kids left because of the disgusting things going on. When she went to schedule dinner with one of the friends 2 nights ago, she found out the girl’s mother pulled her out because of what was going on. My poor daughter called to tell me she heard ambulances (plural) and a fire truck come there because of problems all in one or two nights. Drunken kids were touching and harrassing kids innocently playing board games in the lounge. How inxecusable of you parents on this board to tolerate these actions happening or your kids drinking when it can be fatal for god’s sake. Why do you think this gets worse every year?? You are putting up with it. Why can’t AU give me the Resident directors phone number? I will tell you why. They don’t want to deal with because they are getting many other calls probably every year. Where is the RA?? Where is the RA Director??? Drinking???</p>
<p>By the way, boyxs, Cornell professor, Dr.James Maas, a very renowned doctor on the subject of health and sleep has written a number of famous reports on how kids between 18 and 24 need 9.25 hours of sleep to perform properly in school and to maintain good health and well being. Letting the dorm stay up until 1 a.m. when some kids have early classes daily is absurd and unhealthy. The floor established 11p.m. as a time for quiet and the very “responsible” RA does zilch to enforce this.</p>
<p>You’ve demonstrated very good reasons on this board why AU SHOULDN’T give you the RA Director’s number. </p>
<p>I just got off the phone with my d. She has settled into her work schedule, changed one course. Up at 6:30 a.m. again to go to the gym - many first year’s there. Working on landing an internship. Most of her floor is made up of first year’s. Many internationals. (It is Leonard.) No drunken folks. No assaults. No bedlam. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t happen elsewhere (I’m sure it does.) Maybe your d. is involved in it. Who knows?</p>
<p>You do know that AU is on the ambulance path to Sibley Memorial Hospital (less than a mile away), don’t you? If she doesn’t hear an ambulance and fire engine every night, there is something very wrong.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>You honestly do not sound like a professional healthcare worker. I am trying to relate to you what is unfortunately going on, and you keep attacking my daughter who is the victim?
Why do you like to go into denial as defense every time?</p>
<p>Simply because I see your daughter (whom I’ve never met) as a bright, intelligent, capable student and human being, and most definitely not a victim, unless she chooses to be so.</p>
<p>From what I can tell, you see her differently.</p>
<p>Well, peace everybody. I am sorry if I came down too hard on anyone. It just bothers me to hear what is going on in the colleges especially ours. I still believe more involvement is needed by parents and the administration of colleges regarding substance abuse. The kids are obviously getting some of the money from parents to purchase alchohol. More attention to this needs to be taken. As I said, at my son’s college institutes a lot more procedures to crack down on these problems. Adults,married couples over 50, live in, and walk the halls of the dorms everyday. More activities are also planned for the kids to get involved from the get go as a deterrent to alchohol use.</p>
<p>As I said before, there are plenty of activities planned on campus that do not involve alcohol. I only chose to give the 50X worse example because you, once again, have made it seem as if it the situation at AU is unique to this school when everyone knows it is not. This is a problem common to ALL colleges, even the one your son attends though you may not choose to believe that. Stop blaming parents and the administration, which I am sure is more concerned and aware than you may realize. Students need to make the right choices, and college is one place they can LEARN to do that. I wouldn’t judge the entire school by some drunk kids away from their parents for the first time.</p>
<p>Cadmium,
My nephew is a junior at Cornell, and from the stories I have heard from him it is ten times crazier there as compared to AU…my guess is that your son just does not tell you as much, maybe because he is a typical male or maybe because he does not want you jumping all over it.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of a college where the dorms are not loud and the students are not up late…it’s just one of the adjustments a student has to make. I can’t honestly believe that the dorm environment is a shock to you or your daughter. A parent calling the RA is not going to change this. An RA is not a parent and the students are not children…the RA is not meant to be an enforcer punishing disobedient children. </p>
<p>What does your daughter want to do about the situation? What is she willing to do about it? Is she working on identifying other roomies if she wants to switch a few weeks from now? Informal swaps can be worked even earlier, if all the parties agree. Ask you daughter what SHE wants to do, instead of what she wants you to do. Has she written a letter to her RA or RA’s supervisor or even the head of housing? Don’t say she’s too busy…writing an email takes only minutes, and she is in class only a few hours a day–if it’s important to her, and not mere venting over the whole transition to college, she would do it even without your prompting.</p>
<p>With no classes scheduled for tomorrow, D is going to the movies tonight with a bunch of floor-mates, and tomorrow there are plans to make pancakes for breakfast in the lounge. Unless they’re going to be “special” pancakes, it seems that at least one freshman floor has not become Sodom and Gomorrah. So cadmiumred, your daughter may want to look into a switch to Hughes, if she can find a frustrated party animal who wants to leave. The girl across the hall from D, a sophomore, has no roommate at all because someone bailed on her at the last minute, so who knows what may be possible. But by all means let you child work this out on her own. It will be good for her. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if your prior multitude of unhappy contacts with the AU administration will make it difficult for you to get information or have your calls returned promptly at this very busy time.</p>