Well, friends, the University Babysitters are upset. They’ve reacted in a myriad of poor ways, but the one thing that is clear is that they are all distraught.
For those of you who don’t remember, or are just joining the storyline, I suggested in my last column that the University of Massachusetts has a full-time babysitting program consisting of what they call residential assistants. These RAs, or babysitters, have a primary objective of assisting the University in keeping tabs on students through documentation and judicial proceedings. I also suggested that these RAs disguise their purpose by reportedly assisting the students – a lie that the University Babysitters have developed to make their presence more palatable to the residents.
This fake purpose is accompanied by an entire bureaucratic system of terminology and procedure. But the fake names aside, this is something that all of us are familiar with from our childhood because the University Babysitters use much the same processes that we experienced in our younger days. I’d like to take a minute to explain the process our babysitters today use. I’ll be using our fictional friend from my last column, Nashville, to demonstrate my point.
Nashville has a system of rules. It’s just like when we were five years old, and when our parents brought the babysitter over to the house; we had to be good. There were certain things we couldn’t get away with doing. In those days, this system was just called “rules.”
But the University Babysitters have come up with a more important term. To boost their apparent importance, the sitters now call it the “Code of Student Conduct.” Unlike the simple system of rules that we all knew from childhood, this system is rather complex, and most of the students, I believe, don’t know more than a sentence from it. Nashville loves the Code of Student Conduct because this is how he exercises the control over his residents.
I remember when I was young, if the babysitter was over and I misbehaved, the sitter would say something along the lines of, “I’ll give you a bad report.” I’m sure some variation of this situation applies to almost all of us. If we weren’t good, the babysitters told our parents. Today this system is called write-ups.
This part of the system as well is much more complicated than the way it used to be. When we were little, our babysitters gave oral reports to our parents. Now, our babysitters must file official “witness reports.” This is Nashville’s favorite part. It must be, because he does it so often.
Our parents would get upset with us when we were bad to our babysitters. They would talk to us about what we did. Usually they’d take the side of the babysitter because in their minds, the babysitters usually were more credible.
The same is true for the University Babysitters. While our parents didn’t even have a name for this part of the process, the University calls it the “judicial process.” This impressive name refers to the time in which we can appeal to a higher authority. In our younger days, we could just say, “Mommy, I didn’t do it.” Perhaps this would work better today than the logical, well-reasoned arguments that tend to get students nowhere in judicial process.
One Resident Director even said to me: “This isn’t a process based on truth.” Unlike in the real world, where one must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, the University Babysitters must only prove that it is more likely than not that a situation occurred.
Our parents would then punish us. The university calls this “sanctions.” Our parents would reprimand us. The university issues a “university reprimand.” Our parents would ground us. The university “suspends” us. Our parents would take away our allowance. The university “fines” us. For nearly everything our parents would do, our university, which serves as our new parents, has its analogous punishment.
Sometimes, in my family, we had to discuss matters as a whole. When the University Babysitter facilitates this discussion, it is called a “floor meeting.” Nashville, being a complete social recluse, is very bad at these, and averages only one a semester. Nashville and the University Babysitters don’t like to communicate with their residents. It isn’t as fun as writing them up.
I should acknowledge that, sometimes, we did fun things with our babysitters too. We all had our favorite ones, who would take us to Friendly’s for a Happy Ending or would push our swings on the playground. Some of the better RAs at our University have fun with us too. Some of them organize times known as “social events.” But most are like Nashville, and do next to nothing. Most of our RAs don’t lift a finger when it comes to making the living environment a positive place, but, like Nashville, are all but overzealous when it comes to giving a slap on the wrist. If you have a good RA, you are fortunate.
In my last column, I may have generalized a little too much. I know some good RAs out there with whom, like with my favorite babysitter, I enjoy spending time. But Nashville’s brand of babysitter is evil. I can only hope that our newfound University parents do a better job hiring babysitters for us in the future.
To all the good RAs out there, you are my favorite sitters – and I mean that in the most affectionate of ways. To all the Nashvilles, I can only hope the University finds someone to babysit you.
Morris Singer is a Collegian columnist.
