irsday • March 12, 1998
Opinion
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John
Lemons
columnist
rsity
days,
the Ath-
epait
T-cairK' up
Irhe
Then
h r over-
led Ag- i 1
reated
ly Week. Now, the Residence
1 11 : issociation has cooked up the
er of all bad ideas.
U1 LA is considering a proposal to
d visitation hours in residence
at ™ to 24 hours-a-day. If the Uni-
me y adopts the proposal, individ-
sidence halls will be able vote
! stall
agin'
)w opposite-sex visitors in their
t any time, day or night,
lis ill-conceived legislation will
nprove the quality of life within
mce halls. Instead, it will pro
behavior that is detrimental to
onen:
nlv or.
|n ng a college education.
I Q : irrently, visitation hours in sin-
1() ,x halls runs from 10 a.m. to 2
| |!]v These visitation hours are ex-
| ith 3ly generous. Surely, 16 hours a
i an ample amount of time for
hers of the opposite sex to visit.
it ,p 3withe first point that any pro-
I vm ;ntof 24-hour visitation will
i 3 islthat ending visitation
s at 2 a.m. ruins late- night
/ groups. This observation,
;ver, does not match up with
! j.-.yl After all, how many students
I l P wa ke at 2 a.m., much less
^ >dng? Even in the rowdiest
f , most people are sleeping by 2
Students do not look at their
watches and say, “Oh my, it’s 2 o’
clock, guess I better start studying
for that test tomorrow.”
A&M’s mission is to educate stu
dents. The residence hall’s mission is
to support A&M’s mission, provide a
place to live and help students in
their personal development.
Extending visitation hours in no
way furthers these goals. Twenty-
four hour visitation does, however,
accomplish several things, none of
them good.
First, 24-hour visitation invites
co-habitation. Co-habitation occurs
when someone who is not paying
rent for a room moves into that
room under the premise they are vis
iting. You may know it by its less elo
quent name — ‘shacking up.’
Generally, what occurs, is one
roommate’s boyfriend or girlfriend
spends all of their time in the room,
even sleeping there. This creates an
uncomfortable situation for the oth
er roommate, who finds himself un
welcome in his own room. As the old
saying goes, three’s a crowd.
Co-habitation is a problem in
co-ed halls that have 24-hour visi
tation. It is a nuisance for hall staff
who not only have to keep an eye
out for it, but also have to confront
it. Thus, allowing 24-hour visitation
in all residence halls creates prob
lems for roommates and staff
members, alike.
Frankly, students who want to
shack up with their significant oth
ers already have an option. It is
called an apartment. In these mysti
cal places, students can have oppo
site-sex visitors at all hours of the
night. They can even have 2 a.m.
study groups, if they so desire.
Something else 24-hour visita
tion accomplishes, is it destroys the
sense of privacy within a residence
hall. Residence halls are the home
away from home for college stu
dents. Students need to feel secure
within their residence hall. Twenty-
four hour visitation undermines
this feeling of security.
Consider, for example, Davis-
Gary hall. You may have noticed it
has curtains placed Over its entrance
door windows. Those curtains are
drawn at night, so that the women in
Davis-Gary can walk from the bath
room to their room in a robe or a
towel without being ogled by all of
campus. Obviously, those curtains
exist to provide privacy.
Twenty-four hour visitation
means a member of the opposite sex
may be in the hallways of a residence
hall at any given time. That means
students can never feel safe to walk
through a hallway in a robe, in a tow
el or in their skivvies. In this situa
tion, residence halls start to feel a lot
less like home.
A&M is not in the business of
giving students an opportunity to
shack up with their significant oth
ers. It is in the business of provid
ing educations.
Allowing 24-hour visitation in sin
gle-sex residence halls does nothing
to further students’ educations. It
does do something toward disrupt
ing their education.
These residence halls are called
single-sex because only males or fe
males live in them. RHA should be
working to make sure that remains
true at least between the hours of 2
a.m. and 10 a.m.
John Lemons is an electrical
engineering graduate studen t.
Extension benefits residents
Eric
Williams
guest columnist
W hy should visita
tion hours be ex
tended? Who real
ly cares?
These are probably a cou
ple of questions many stu
dents are asking.
Well, there are approxi
mately 8,500 people who
will be affected by a change
in the visitation schedule.
That means about 22 per
cent of the students at this
university. And, one can be sure each of those
8,500 people have some opinion about what goes
on in an on-campus residence hall.
One of the hot topics currently of concern to the
Residence Hall Association (RHA) involves extend
ing the visitation hours of on-campus residence
halls. The resolution that was proposed last night
at the RHA General Assembly was to extend the
visitation hours from the current 10 a.m. to 2 a.m.
schedule to a new schedule of 9 a.m. to 2 a.m.
Additionally, it would give all halls the right to
vote for 24-hour visitation either on weekends or
all the time.
Many students are probably wondering why
RHA proposed to add only one hour to the current
visitation hours. One reason is many residents
have complained that alter their first class of the
day, they were unable to go back to their rooms to
study with classmates.
However, allowing visitors any earlier than 9
a.m. would infringe upon other residents trying to
get ready for the day.
Also, making visitation last any longer than 2 a.m.
would be similar to granting 24-hour visitation. In re
sults from RHA surveys, most people supported mov
ing the visitation hours to 9 a.m., but not many people
liked the idea of extending visiting hours to 4 a.m.
The requirements for the 24-hour visitation op
tions will rashly be imposed. The feat is not as easy
as having a simple majority vote. In order to en
sure overwhelming support for either option, it
must be approved by at least 90 percent of the re
spective hall’s residents.
A system of checks and balances allows resi
dents who oppose the extension to rally support
and vote it down. In small halls, like Hotard,
only 12 residents out of 111 would be needed to
deny the 24-hour extension. In large halls, like
Mosher, 68 residents out of the 670 would be
needed for denial.
Obviously, these numbers show that a super-
majority of residents are required for approval.
If the hall voted for extending the visitation
hours, the hall staff (primarily RAs) would not be
handing out as many incident reports for violating
visitation hours, which account for the majority of
all incident reports in many halls.
These incident reports only serve to create
more paperwork for the RAs and the Department
of Residence Life. The time and energy required
for writing these incident reports at 2 a.m. could
be better put to use on activities such as sleeping.
Furthermore, the residents would have a little
more respect for the RAs, since they and their
friends would not be punished for breaking visita
tion hours in the resident’s home.
These residence halls are students’ homes, and
they should be allowed to have people over when
they want.
Some people are worried having 24-hour visita
tion would create keggers in the middle of the night
and destroy nocturnal studying. This is not true. In
fact, the halls that do have 24-hour visitation have
the least incidents of any kind. They do not have
all-night keggers, and in fact, many people go to
those halls to study after the library closes.
If anything, this resolution is very conservative.
It allows only a slight change in the current visita
tion hours. It does allow for 24-hour visitation on
the weekends or all the time, but it requires such a
large number of people for approval that it could
easily be turned down.
If students are interested in more information,
please visit the RHA website at
http://rha.tamu.edu/.
EricWilliams is president of the Residence Hall
Association and a senior biomedical
science major.
CAMPUS CONNECTION
Promoting unity cannot be achieved through discrimination
limpioE
ed in
ills S
Thui
If. Oil
1(19-1
i(22-l
land J
ate (2-/V s I arr ' ve( d at work earlier
Lj/A this week and began to
L^ . JLreturn phone calls and e-
L~ ( j tail messages, I was forward-
vs ’i a disturbing e-mail that
1 rings to the surface some facts
7 aout racism.
The ideals of racial hatred,
itism and segregation are all
and'
he, mi
bthei
3iy much alive in every race
nd in every university in our
ation. “Racism” practiced in
ny form, in any capacity, by
ny group is deplorable and
Len
Callaway
columnist
facte
' h ' : ' uite simply foolish.
star The e-mail 1 received was attributed to a man
e $ 0 amedTroy Nkrumah who claims to be theWest-
oast Coordinator of the “Million Youth March.” The
rt ’ s P l urname Nkrumah is interesting because in the early
1)1 [ 950s and 1960s, Ghana was led by a militant radical
lationalist named Kwame Nkrumah who eventually
became Prime Minister and was later ousted in a mil-
intic ar y coup. Based on the content of the message the
M 01 uthor has chosen to identify with Nkrumah’s tactics
t P li .nd ideals.
Among the many hateful and discriminatory
en 1 tatements I found was the following:
sev’f “ We are encouraging all youth of African descent
e Iqnd our allies the brothas and sisters of Latino de-
Ix'tl' 1 cent and indigenous descent to come together to
th'lemand justice as we come into the 21st century.”
tol> The mail went on to ask “ If you are not of
d" Vfric an/Latino/Native American Descent please re
ply and let me know so that I will take you off the
list. Or if you are just a sellout to your people I will
take you off our list as well. For the rest of you, stay
strong while in the hells of this beast we call
Amerikkka!!!”
(Typos and misspellings were left as is to preserve
the integrity of the quote).
My initial reaction was probably much the
same as yours is now. Outrage, confusion, shock
and indignation.
I was on the verge of dismissing the hate mail as a
poor joke until I decided to take a look at the Web sites
to which the mail directs its readers. Make no mistake
— this is real and the Web sites contain much more
offensive material and rhetoric than the mail itself.
These sites include exclusivist and elitist mes
sages aimed at excluding anyone and everyone oth
er than African Americans from the “Million Youtli
March” and the quest for African-American im
provement and advancement.
These sites did host some healthy, positive ideals
such as the desire to boost selfesteem and the eco
nomic position of African-American people. Howev
er, my objection is that the site is dedicated only to
African-American people and excludes all others.
This is discriminatory and racist.
Being the recipient of some totally ridiculous mail
in die past, I was willing to let this one go and simply
recognize the propaganda for what it is — segregation-
alist, elitist, racist and discriminatory. However, as I
printed the message, I could not help but notice it was
proceeded by six completely full, single-spaced pages
of e-mail addresses to wliich it had also been sent.
Seventy-eight addresses pertained to faculty and
students here at Texas A&M. The rest were sent to
students all over the country. It is a shame some of
the people charged with our education subscribe to
the beliefs represented in this document.
Hopefully, we can all recognize the sheer igno
rance with which this propaganda was written, how
ever, the real point should be to realize that no group
of people may excel in the modern world without an
open and cooperative nature, not just cooperation
amongst one’s own people, but unilateral coopera
tion amongst all people.
I was under the impression America and A&M
may have grown and learned from the mistakes of
the past and believed our generation could be the
one that finally left all of the nonsense behind and
worked toward a more positive end result for our
country and our world.
It appears as though my assumption was inaccu
rate to a degree.
One cannot speak of advancement for their
own people without speaking of advancement for
all peoples; to do so is to exhibit elitist and exclu
sivist attitudes.
Take for example the multitude of multicultural
organizations here at A&M. These organizations are
healthy and beneficial to the constituency they rep
resent and to A&M as a whole.
Why? Simply because their doors are open to
everyone. They do not care about color or creed, they
simply want the opportunity to share their culture
with anyone who will take the time to be interested.
One would assume the “Million Youth March”
was brought to fruition in hopes of boosting solidar
ity and unity, however, when one group excludes all
others their activities become purely divisive.
There is nothing wrong with an organization
working toward a better goal for its members, as
long as anyone is permitted to join the organization
and work toward the same goal.
That is not the case with the “Million Youth
March,” as the e-mail clearly states — anyone of
Asian or Anglo Saxon lineage is asked to reply so
they might be excluded.
It is incumbent upon each of us to recognize
that in today’s world, the ideals of racism and the
elitist mentality of the past must not continue to
be proliferated.
The days of slavery are gone, the days of the
Holocaust are gone, the days of the mass destruc
tion of the Native American people are gone, the
days of the discrimination against Irish and Scot
tish, Italian, Polish, Czech or any other group are
also over. It is now up to us to pick up the pieces
and learn to live, work and play together while
seeking a better end for everyone.
Decisions of worth in relation to other people are
part of our daily lives. We choose who to eat with, who
to date, who to work with, what school to attend, what
church to attend, who our friends will be etc.
However, the important thing to keep in mind, as
Dennis Miller once exclaimed “Why dislike a person
because of the color of their skin when there are so
many more legitimate reasons.”
Len Callaway is a junior journalism major.
1 rtf 1
mail call
^cycling stands as
^iblic relations ploy
Tuesday’s (March 10) Battal-
front page provides an inter
esting perspective on Aggie en
vironmentalism.
One story overviews a feeble
initiative by the “Physical Plant
Recycling Center” and a local “en
vironmental conservation special
ist” to recycle newspapers on
campus to “prevent them from go
ing to land fills.”
This bit of public relations
‘greenscam’ helps cover the simple
fact that tons of non-recycled pa
per pass through Texas A&M copy
machines and printers every day.
If concern for natural re
sources conservation was some
thing other than a public rela
tions farce on this campus, the
local administration would insure
that recycled paper is purchased
and used by the institution.
The adjacent story on this page,
regarding formation of a Bonfire in
doctrination team, provides a more
realistic view of the local mind set.
The mission here, another public
relations scam mounted by the lo
cal administration, is to convince
‘community members’ that the an
nual burning of 8,000 trees on cam
pus is a “very positive event.”
Bonfire, is from my point of
view, a “very positive” signal of lo
cal reality. Its presence, which
negates any recycling effort on this
campus, provides a real challenge
for ‘spin doctors’ in the local pub
lic relations department, at least in
the area of A&M concern for nat
ural resource conservation.
Dr. Hugh D. Wilson
Biology professor
Howdy Week not
intended as offensive
Chris Huffines’ column on the
vigor of Howdy Week raises some
very interesting points the officers of
Howdy Ags would like to address. We
appreciate Huffines’ point and we
sincerely apologize to any students
who have been offended by the ac
tions taken by our volunteers and
Howdy Ags.
We respect the views of all students
and in no way want to force the tradi
tions on anyone.
However we feel that this year’s
Howdy Week demonstrated the true
spirit behind the tradition and be
hind Texas A&M.
Howdy is one tradition that de
fines the heart of this University
and it was amazing to see over 200
incredibly motivated students
helping to preserve this tradition.
We in no way feel they joined
Howdy Ags in order to give their
life a purpose; they joined because
they have a deep love and passion
for this university and its tradi
tions.
We also believe that the com
parisons made to the KKK and the
Nazi party were totally out of line.
These groups were representing
the ideas of hatred and racism.
Howdy Ags is not only designed to
bring back a word, but to bring
back the spirit that is accompa
nied with the Howdy Tradition.
It is not the word Howdy that is
so important, but it is the love that
the word allows us to share with our
fellow Aggies that is so wonderful.
Pat Moran
Class of’98
Accompanied by 5 signatures