Too small; Nothing to do but party; Told one thing before decision to attend then found out “system” was different. They told us how they would take care of students as “pseudo parents” and staff were only a phone call away. Until you actually call with concerns and they say cannot discuss any info due to “student rights”, etc. My child had some problems and we were never made aware of them until suicide potentially was an issue. Horribly disappointed in the administration.
Every parent with a student over the age of 18 needs to make sure their child signs a HIPPA release with their university and have it be as general as possible so you can talk to the health care providers about everything. At my daughter’s school she had to expressly give permission for mental health. Once they are legal adults, they need to consent for information sharing even if they are still on our health insurance. Same is true for bills and grades. They need to sign a FERPA waiver otherwise parents don’t have access to any of that.
We took a tour in July, mostly because we were in the area anyway. It is very remote (the nearest supermarket is a Piggly Wiggly, about 8 miles away in Monteagle, and it’s not that great). Was disappointed to learn of 80% of students go Greek. Of the five students taking the tour, three were from private schools, so there is “southern preppy” element to it. But yes, very insular. It’s probably off our list.
To be fair, no school can discuss the student’s health with the parent without a release. However, if the school is advertising it is ‘only a phone call away’ they should also tell you what the process is for answering that phone call.
The HIPPA release was part of the online orientation. My child signed it and the school did not communicate with us at all, even when he got into trouble and part of his punishment (acc to the letter received) was that the dean was going to contact us. The school never contacted us and our child was miserable waiting for the hammer to fall and was really stressed out. On top of that, the school said no to joining a greek org so he felt further isolated. I am fine with appropriate punishments, but there needs to be support as well. When I went up to visit recently, campus police were pulling kids over left and right and I overheard several kids talking about “getting busted” (just walking by and overhearing snippets of conversation). The school seems to be trying to clean up its reputation and is throwing the book at every student as if they are all criminals (verses kids experimenting here and there). It is not a supportive environment or a safe place to test boundaries. If parents are alumni, the school will work harder to keep a child from getting derailed but if you are not a legacy, expect no special treatment or support. The school used to let kids do community service and things like that to learn a lesson, but now opts for 1-2 semesters of suspension. It is nuts. There are many great professors and kids there, but the atmosphere can feel oppressive.
The setting is rural and it is isolated and there is not much to do. The school turns a blind eye to drinking but has become hard-core anti-drug. Teachers talk sweetly about Bonnaroo and the local whiskey distillery (and freshman even tour the distillery in some FYP classes even though they are not of age which sends the signal that drinking is ok). The locals/teachers are proud of the things this area has to offer, but if a student gets in trouble with the administration due to MJ or small amounts of party drugs, the discussion immediately turns to talks of needing drug and alcohol rehab: SHAME SHAME SHAME! There are a lot of mixed messages. In previous years, there was a reputation for being a safe enclave in which a student could have the typical college experience and get a good education, with lots of teacher support, but last year and this year the school has become extremely punitive, calling the Franklin County PD to come in and handle infractions that used to be handled only in-house. I know many students would not have picked this school had they known this. A friend that spoke with a dean recently about a violation recently was told that boys especially need to learn their lessons the hard way (wow–really–I wonder how that person will feel when her own kids go through the same thing). For kids facing felony charges for very small amounts of drugs (personal use amounts), this is quite alarming. TN laws are very stringent and a student can easily have their life derailed due to this new “war on drugs” attitude. There is a mix of conservative and liberals, including MAGA-hat-wearing types who publicly claim to be perfect follow-the-rules types while secretly harboring knives and homemade hard alcohol in the dorm room. These Ted Cruz-loving types do not get investigated, but students caught with a small amount of drugs that many college students are going to try at one time or another, the school goes hard-core and kicks kids out, oftentimes pursuing violations with local law enforcement months after first reported. One child thought he had dealt with the school on conduct charges and was arrested on campus months later by the county police (after serving his campus probation and doing all that was required on campus). I am sure he would have left school had he known the school was going to pursue further punitive action. Kids are using an app to report minor infractions on each other out of anger, jealousy over relationships or because they just don’t like a person and it is causing a major sense of fear and paranoia on campus with some of the kids circling the wagons/protecting each other and the other kids tattling on each other as much as possible. Girls are especially mean to each other and will bully each other and guys they hate on social media and in person and the school does nothing about it. Guys are too scared to report this due to the #metoo movement. Getting an anonymous (many times fabricated) tip is not enough to stand up in a courtroom in terms of there being probable cause to search a dorm room or student, but the Sewanee PD is knocking on doors in the middle of the night and rousing kids and demanding to search rooms. Students can say no, but the school tries to make the student think that they do not have a choice. Cars are pulled over and searched for any possible infraction. There are quite a few girls who sell drugs on campus, but campus PD seems very focused on punishing male students and giving the girls a pass, lucky them! Students should not be selling drugs, and I am guessing they are doing it because they need or think they need the money, but most students here are pretty well-off financially. For any prospective students reading this, please think twice about this idea that one can support themselves doing this; I know of some students who have literally wrecked their lives at least temporarily over these stupid choices. It isn’t worth it. Apparently, it is ok to be an underaged alcoholic at Sewanee but not an occasional marijuana user. The Franklin County PD is overstepping on charges and will allow students to plea down to misdemeanors but more misdemeanors=more money for the county and Franklin County will sometimes pursue more charges without evidence knowing kids/parents will plea down and pay the fines versus fighting something in court over several months. Sewanee allows alcohol on campus and there is quite a bit of underage drinking as a result, but no one seems to care about that. The recent aggressive war on drugs is making students think they need to take their drug use/partying off campus. This will result in unsafe driving under the influence. That said, students who get into trouble off campus are not suspended as the school has no way of knowing (not officially anyway) when these things happen. This is another reason students are traveling off campus to indulge. I had heard that the head of the deans had told the local DA (a Sewanee grad) to throw the book at Sewanee students. This is short-sighted. I guess the school does not need future alumni to make donations to the school. Perhaps the school is so focused on their dwindling legacy students that they do not care to develop non-legacy students into promising alumni donors. Hard-core known criminals from this county are being given the same plea-bargains as first time offending college students with tiny amounts of harmless drugs. Franklin County is making quite a bit of money off of the fees spent defending these kids in court and the university supports this. It is really disturbing. If the school was really concerned about the violating students’ behavior, the school would be in contact with parents immediately following violations and would be giving counseling and support to students so that they do not engage in worse or harmful behaviors or possibly suicide from thinking that all is lost. If the school really thought there were major drug dealers on campus, one would think the students would be removed more swiftly, not pursued sometimes weeks and months after a violation. Students who are legacies and whose parents give money to the school are often at an advantage and receive lighter judgments in terms of on-campus violations. Students can appeal decisions to the Vice Chancellor, and that is a good thing. About half of the time it works out that the student does not have to leave campus. Of course, every day that goes by during this process is so stressful. Most students with violations have a very difficult time getting their work done. The whole school is abuzz with whatever happened–there is no privacy and kids who have gotten in trouble can be further isolated by the feeling of being shunned. The school might as well nail a proclamation to the doors of All Saints Chapel with all of the sinners’ names as any arrests on campus are very public and known about by the entire student body within hours. I can understand the school wanting to steer the school in a different direction, but perhaps more support and counseling from student teacher advisors on the front end would be appropriate along with more physical engagement with the students from teachers to check in with them and see how they are doing. Proctors could be trained to go in and talk to kids and point out what they should not have in their rooms etc. Developmentally, students at this age still think they are invincible. I wish the school were trying harder to guide the students versus taking such a punitive destructive approach. I really hate having to live on campus all four years in this powder keg. Disappointed.
I concur…“In previous years, there was a reputation for being a safe enclave in which a student could have the typical college experience and get a good education, with lots of teacher support, but last year and this year the school has become extremely punitive, calling the Franklin County PD to come in and handle infractions that used to be handled only in-house. I know many students would not have picked this school had they known this. A friend that spoke with a dean recently about a violation recently was told that boys especially need to learn their lessons the hard way (wow–really–I wonder how that person will feel when her own kids go through the same thing). For kids facing felony charges for very small amounts of drugs (personal use amounts), this is quite alarming. TN laws are very stringent and a student can easily have their life derailed due to this new “war on drugs” attitude”
To make it worse they are holding transcripts to further punish kids that have been “kicked out” making it incredibly hard on the kids. Not punitive, just mean.