In Loco Parentis

[Aloysius]

I believe in the restoration of the old principal In Loco Parentis when it comes to Colleges and Universities. Our college systems have become destructive lifestyles in and of themselves.

I've seen an old schedule from St. Vincent College (the college I attend) from about a hundred years ago. A couple points I remember about it:

There were room checks insisting upon cleanliness.
There were bed times/curfews.
There were laundry times.
No one was allowed in their [i]dormitory[/i] except at nighttime.
Not to mention dormitories were male only (back then this particular college was all male only)
There were strict formal dress codes for class time.

I know it wouldn't be possible to restore all of these things all at once or anything, but I have come to the opinion that this is the proper role of a college, in the place of the parent. College is not, nor should it be, a taste of the 'freedom' (read: licence) available in the real world. It should be a rigorous education-based institution which acts in the place of the parent and provides a strict and disciplined society wherein a student can grow.

College students nowadays have statistically higher levels of mental illness than the regular population, even compared to their same age grade. Imagine that: they're having sex, drinking, staying up to all hours of the night, living in close quarters, exposed to huge levels of stress, and given borderless licence to do all of these things. I believe a more structured society in college would decrease these insane amounts of mental illness and depression that happens.

And I know most will say "well they need experience with real life choices" et cetera. I don't buy that one bit. If we're keeping these people in carreer-limbo for the sake of education and preparation for carreer, we need to keep them in highly structured highly bordered social structures. You're having people leave family and not go to family, but go to the hornet's nest of peers with no structure. It's ridiculous. Students should not be political voices, student's should not have freedom of speech and licence of action; they are attending an institution and should be bound by strict rules to do so. It will help their education and mental wellbeing.

Of course, it's all so unrealistic, people at my college are up in arms because we have a Sonic Firewall fiddler which prohibits Pornography. God forbid that a Catholic institution not allow its tools to be used to kill the souls of its students and demolish their ability to ever have healthy relationships.

And I don't know that there's anyone left in the halls of Academia I would trust to really act in loco parentis to me... well, actually, our current President would probably make good policies if he was given the power and impetus.

I'm such a dreamer.

[goldenchild17]

I definitely agree with the idea in principle. But for me, I just couldn't imagine a school that I would trust in such a role. That's just me though.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

I [i]wholeheartedly[/i] agree.

[Sojourner]

I went to a school that had a sort of parental attitude toward students ... not quite as strict as what you describe, Al, but definite guidelines. We all had to sign a "Life Together Covenant" which not only laid out the basic religious beliefs of the students (and faculty, who are also required to sign) but also behavioral expectations: no premarital sex, no drinking, no drugs, no gambling, no dancing, etc. Students who engaged in this behaviors were disciplined up to and including dismissal. Pornography would never have been publicly advocated by students, because the culture on campus was actually pretty close to being in line with the LTC expectations.

It was restrictive, and there were many students who chafed under the guidelines. I never had a problem with it until I came back as an adjunct faculty. (I still don't think faculty should have been required to adhere to the LTC provisions regarding things like drinking and dancing, but whatever.)

Where these restrictions necessary and beneficial? I don't really know. I can speculate about how I would have turned out had they not been in place ... and I kinda think it would not have been all that different. But that's me. I think that the reason the LTC guidelines were as effective as they were was not due to the fact that the university had them in place and enforced them alone (although that clearly played a role -- people often live up to your expectations of them) but also because of the background of the students who attended. Asking a university to parent kids who have not been properly parented before coming in is pointless, in my view.

One thing that could well make a difference in curbing this kind of actions would be for univerisities to raise the academic and extracurricular expectations of students. In high school, studies have shown that kids who work have later sexual debut, do better in school, and generally are more well-rounded and responsible. The saying "idle hands are the devil's plaything" is certainly applicable here. Rather than acting as parents, perhaps requiring more of students in terms of academic performance or community involvement could be beneficial.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I'd just be happy if the University of Nebraska would remove the condoms from the vending machines. Gross.

[sarcasm]That sure makes me want to buy a snickers![/sarcasm]

[Sojourner]

[quote name='Raphael' post='1250502' date='Apr 20 2007, 04:51 PM']I'd just be happy if the University of Nebraska would remove the condoms from the vending machines. Gross.

[sarcasm]That sure makes me want to buy a snickers![/sarcasm][/quote]
they're in the same vending machines as candy bars?

Sick.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote]One thing that could well make a difference in curbing this kind of actions would be for univerisities to raise the academic and extracurricular expectations of students.[/quote]

I can say from my own experience of Oxford and Cambridge that this doesn't work. Cambridge has one of the biggest binge drinking problems of any university in Britain - and yet we're one of the top three universities in the world. The workload is frightening. Seriously frightening. I get three times as much as a girl from my old high school who is studying the same course at Leeds University. Leeds still has a good, solid academic reputation, but they don't expect you to produce seventeen essays in eight weeks. The reading for those essays alone takes up most of your free time. Factor in lectures, supervisions, and extracurricular activities and you are hard pressed to find time to do anything else.

I see some students cramming in the library until four in the morning on many nights and then getting disgustingly drunk after formal hall or on Saturday nights. I think there is a definite correlation between the amount of academic pressure that people feel and the amount they drink.

[kateri05]

thomas aquinas college in CA has all of these rules al, except the dorms only at nite thing.



i have no problem with any of those rules, including a dry campus EXCEPT CURFEWS. for freshman, sure; sophomores, maybe. but juniors and seniors?? these are 21-24 year olds and they can decide what time they go to bed and go to their rooms just fine (so speaks a girl who did 1Am adoration thursday nites, and did MANY runs to the grocery store at 2AM because i'm a nite person and that is when i had the time) its college NOT a monastery. you can set your own schedule.



filters for porn is great, but on a sidenote, they block weird things. my old job (at a high school) had one and um, they blocked my wedding picture website. weird

Edited April 20, 2007 by kateri05

[Aloysius]

I actually don't believe in dry campuses. St. Vincent's has never been a dry campus.

As regards curfews: I think it'd be an important part of the communal unity and integrity of the college system for those who live on a college campus to be required to retire for sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time. I see the whole lack-of-sleep thing, and the whole arbitrarity of when and where sleep occurs, as damaging.

I know where you're coming from. I never sleep, and I'm always out till all hours of the night.

I don't think there should really be differences in this regard between freshman or seniors; it's all about living a disciplined lifestyle and I think a community which includes discipline in this regard; making early breakfast times and early curfews. Room checks too.

It's sad to me that we consider the idea of mandatory curfews regulated to monasteries and convents alone; I think universities would benefit greatly from it academically and psychologically.

Like I said: I don't think this is really feasible anymore; but it would be absolutely beneficial. College students need discipline; they should not have licence; they should be under a parental-type supervision which preserves strong social boundaries around food, sleep,

The whole dormitory as a sleep-only thing isn't necessarily a good idea anymorer because of computers as academic tools, unless laptops with wireless access around campus were mandatory. what that did in the past was create community.

I don't like programmed things, they're almost always artificial (in my estimation), so just more mandatory programming things would not be good in my opinion. What would be best would be to unite the community under a few reasonably strict disciplines; people should have to go to breakfast, people should have to get good nights' rests at the same time as everyone else.

I'm not a model of all of these things, but I feel I would respond well to such united communal discipline in the college environment.

again, haha, I'm an unrealistic dreamer. But I know there are some who still have some levels of the principal In Loco Parentis creating some disciplined environments. but I'm an idealist and don't think they go far enough (and in some cases, like making dry campuses, I think they are misguided by puritanism).

I actually support having on-campus bars, which would of course cut you off before you got drunk, and there would be clear punishment for public drunkenness.

[kateri05]

my thing with dry campuses is that i have YET to see a campus with booze that doesn't end up having underage kids end up with alcohol. and why alcohol - minus drunkenness-is AOK by me (although i wish it was cheaper so i could afford it! , i think it sends a HORRIBLE message to non-Christians when Christians violate the drinking law. so if it could be done in a way that would involve ACTUAL no underage drinking than cool. oncampus bars sound fun


that being said, college does need to prepare you for real life and real life includes setting your own schedule. we're not all called to a life of monastic discipline, and sleep schedules definitely fit in with that. you can have lots of community with things like, lets say, dinner hour, community rooms (no tvs in room - i think thats great, forces you to hang out together, makes your room less like to have naughty things happen, since you can't spend all your time there), lots of things to do ON campus, coffee shops, pool halls, etc etc.


ps. as for "where" sleeping occurs - what about when you and your girlfriends want to have a fun, popcorn, cookie and milk girly movie sleepover in your apartment? those are some of my best college memories, and they are certainly wholesome and wonderful. i think colleges need to have nice blend of in loco parentis and letting you decide things for yourself, especially as you transition from freshman to senior. cuz lets face it, freshman are still really hs students and seniors are adults - or should be anyways, if you raise 'em right : i don't see any true environments that are actually guiding young people through this process of growing older, which includes making decisions, good and moral ones, for yourself

Edited April 21, 2007 by kateri05

[Socrates]

I went to [url="http://www.christendom.edu"]Christendom College[/url], a college which actually does believe in the practice of [i]in loco parentis[/i]. Most of the old-time rules are practiced there, such as (gasp!) single-sex dorms, no intervisitation between dorms of the opposite sex (except on "open house" periods where the rooms are open to everyone), curfew for students under 21, classroom dresscode, and rules of modesty for all times, and rules against PDA (public display of affection) on campus.
Being a Catholic school there was no rule against dancing (the school would sponsor dances), unless the dancing was blatantly immodest. Drinks would be served at some official college functions, but no booze was allowed to be kept on campus by students. Posession or use of illegal drugs or porn is punishable by expulsion.
Of course, many people think these rules impossibly strict and "repressive," but it wasn't really that bad (unless one insists on living a hedonistic lifestyle). Of course, things were not perfect, and people would break the rules, and there would be misbehavior (mostly involving drinking) off-campus. But over-all the rules were conducive to a moral Christian lifestyle, and there was not the out-of-control partying common to most campuses.

I believe Thomas Aquinas College in California has similar rules, while Magdalen College in New Hampshire actually has much stricter rules.

And most of these rules, while people today often regard them as unthinkably strict, were simply what was the usual policy even on [i]secular[/i] college campuses prior to the 1960s, as Aloysius' story demonstrates.
The idea that people need to be in an atmosphere of total licentiousness in order to "grow up" and "think for themselves" is ridiculous. Is our generation as a whole more mature and responsible than those of our grandparents and great-grandparents?
The evidence shows otherwise.

While one can quibble about whether or not certain rules are repressive, and how strict they should be, I think college-age students need some rules and discipline in their lives. I think the current practice of giving young people years with absolute license and little responsibility has been very destructive in our culture, and in the lives of many people.

Edited April 21, 2007 by Socrates

[kateri05]

[quote]Drinks would be served at some official college functions, but no booze was allowed to be kept on campus by students.[/quote]


what a great solution. i like it


also, i'm against "visiting hours" and prefer the, coed in common rooms only, policy, at least in dorms, because um, yea. those rules don't work i say, in dorms, because once you get apartments and things, common space becomes built in, where as in dorms, beds predominate.

[Socrates]

[quote name='kateri05' post='1251030' date='Apr 20 2007, 09:39 PM']what a great solution. i like it
also, i'm against "visiting hours" and prefer the, coed in common rooms only, policy, at least in dorms, because um, yea. those rules don't work i say, in dorms, because once you get apartments and things, common space becomes built in, where as in dorms, beds predominate.[/quote]
You've probably got the wrong idea, if you're referring to my post about Christendom. On a few days of the year, there was "open house," during a couple hours of the day, during which all rooms were open to [i]everybody[/i], including faculty anbd staff. People would fix and clean up their rooms, and there would be various awards for room decoration. It was basically an open tour of the dorms - since everybody could walk through, it wasn't like students of the opposite sex could visit privately in a dorm room at this time.

[kateri05]

ohok, yea different kind of visiting hours. my hubby's christian college had the easily broken visiting hours :

[Era Might]

I don't know if all those rule are really "in loco parentis." Most adults have no curfew in real life. If an eighteen year old student is able to marry and go to war, then they are an adult. The role of a parent to an adult is not to give rules, but to give guidance. Maybe college kids are too immature to be adults, and the rules are necessary, but it shouldn't be under the idea that the college is assuming the responsibilities of the parents.