In Loco Parentis

[Socrates]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1251084' date='Apr 20 2007, 09:52 PM']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.[/quote]
Yeah, but if an 18-year-old is living in his parents' house, the parents can make rules concerning his behavior while at their house. A college has the right to make rules concerning student behavior on campus.

[Era Might]

I agree, but the parent is not making the rules because they are a parent, but because they are a landlord. The adult can move out at any time. This is not the case with a child. The college can make whatever rules it wants as a business and an institution, but I think it is infantilizing to turn a college into a surrogate parent.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1250507' date='Apr 20 2007, 04:53 PM']they're in the same vending machines as candy bars?

Sick.[/quote]
Yep. *barf*

[track2004]

Aight I go to a Big 10 university and rules are way different here than at the St. V's. I like it though, I mean sure we have a higher risk for craziness, but at the same time the college is basically letting you be adults. We can vote, and raise kids, and have a family, and have jobs, and enlist so why shouldn't they trust us to go out at night or have people over. I think that being in your early 20s and late teens is just about growing up and realizing what you're supposed to do as opposed to what is fun to do. Sure lots of kids get in a lot of trouble here, but lots more get a good education and a good foundation for their lives. Colleges shouldn't baby their students, but they shouldn't just let them run amouck.

It's the middle of the biggest party week every here and while sure we drink a lot, we also study hard. We have some of the best business, law, journalism, and psych programs in the midwest. We also have some of the best parties in the midwest. Growing up isn't about being led along and never being aloud to make mistakes, it's about figuring life out and knowing what's important to you. I'm not condoning drinking or whatever, but it takes more than someone just telling you it's wrong to realize how bad some decisions are. Growing up is about making mistakes of your own and also learning from the mistakes of others, and just understanding what the adult world is like.

I don't think colleges should tell you how to live your life or when to sleep or go home or who you can and can't hang out with. When you graduate no one will be looking out for you like that so people need to learn what to do and how to act before they'er just thrown out to the world. College is a good opportunity to learn because you have a safety net still. The college will look out for you and protect you if something goes awry, whereas the real world won't.

College is a time to realize that you can have fun, but that you need to do work too and that's what I've learned, and what most of my friends have learned in our time at school.

[Aloysius]

other than the porn fiddler and slightly stricter attendance policies for classes than bigger colleges, we probably don't have much different rules than you folks do. I'm describing what things were like 100 yrs ago. in actuality nowadays there isn't any more structure than the big colleges here.

here's the problem with your idea of letting people live in a permissive atmosphere in order to learn to grow up. colleges used to have such strict rules, and people came out of colleges as respectable members of society. our current society, any way you look at it, is infantalized compared to our society 100 years ago. I won't go around isolating one aspect of our difference from the past culture and say it is the 100% cause-effect component, but if you're trying to establish that the current concept of boundryless college atmospheres is making people more capable of making grown up adults, I just have to point out the innaccuracy when we look at the actual results of both types of colleges.

I understand the concept; I just don't think it holds water in the end. Colleges should provide more structure for those who live on their campuses, it seems to me. But I understand the other side; I LIVE the other side, and I'm fine. I just observe things: I observe that there are large amounts of people who go to psychological counselors on a regular basis. I observe sleep deprived people with self-destructive sexual relationships. These things could be prevented by a more stable and boundry-structured environment. Students should not have licence to do things which are detrimental to college community life (and that's what I define student sexual relationships and lack of structured sleep-times, lack of boundaried areas) if they live in the college community.

I don't believe in dry campuses, nor in the drinking age. I think colleges would do well to have regulated on-campus bars.

[Tufsoles]

I think its a great Idea to a point but I think ( remeber this is coming from a coed) the students themselves to to sit down with themselves and think about thier boundaries and make sure they are staight before they enter college or the adult world.

[ardillacid]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1250018' date='Apr 20 2007, 04:28 AM']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.[/quote]
I don't believe in communism.

[Lena]

I can't imagine my university doing that kind of thing (i go to a Big Ten school where it can get pretty crazy--especially after basketball games). I live off campus right now, but I really hated dorm life because of the lack of privacy! Alcohol wasn't allowed in my dorm though, even if you were 21.

A dress code for class though...? There goes my uniform of jeans and a hoodie!

[Guest T-Bone]

[quote name='notardillacid' post='1260449' date='Apr 30 2007, 01:32 AM']I don't believe in communism.[/quote]

That's not communism.