By Annie Brown, Contributing Writer
Over the last two weeks, students have received various emails at different times from their resident directors (RDs) informing them that Asbury Student Congress (ASC) has changed the open dorm policy. According to the email, students may now host their friends of the opposite sex without the third person present, paving the way for more changes to student life policies.
Open dorm is an established tradition at Asbury. Each week on Fridays and Sundays, students are given the opportunity to visit their friends of the opposite sex in their dorm rooms. Open dorm gives students the ability to show off their rooms, work on class projects together or participate in discussions that may be difficult to have in more public settings. Until recently, open dorm required a minimum of three people in a room where mixed genders were present.
“Honestly, I was a little shocked when I got the email the day before the official email was sent out from our RD Kim [Levengood] over in Kresge,” said Resident Assistant (RA) Lucy Rinehart. “As an RA, we went through training and learned things one way, and now we get to switch it up. I believe it’s a good idea. It puts a lot of trust in the students. Knowing that and having that knowledge that people trust us feels good.”
The policy change, proposed and passed by ASC, was first discussed informally by next year’s student body president-elect Maggie Richwine.
“Through [my] three years [at Asbury], I’ve seen how much has changed,” said Richwine. “I was talking to Dr. [Sarah] Baldwin one day, just casual conversation, and I was like, ‘I think it’s pretty dumb that we have to have three people in a dorm with the door open. Why can’t it just be two people with the door open?’ She said, ‘You know, that is pretty dumb, we’re going to change that.’ Now it’s changed.”
“I think [the policy changes] will be helpful in helping to facilitate community while still providing appropriate expectations,” said Joe Bruner, associate dean of Residence Life.
The open dorm change has widely been accepted by the student body, and students look forward to seeing how this policy change could affect other aspects of community living.
“I think open dorm should be more often,” said sophomore Kenna Gardiner, a resident of Glide-Crawford Hall. “I don’t think it would be too big of a deal to have it every night because we have open commons every night. Why not open dorm?”
While open dorm is not quite to Gardiner’s preference yet, Bruner said there may be more changes coming soon. “We will likely tweak the offerings of community time a bit for next year,” he said.
However, it is unclear what those changes will be. Until then, students will continue to enjoy the open dorm policy as it is currently.
