Changes to Campus Patrol disputed

Amid a swirl of competing rumors, Campus Patrol has altered its duties for the new school year, changing its focus from monitoring outdoor areas to making rounds inside dormitories. While administrators contend that the change is intended to foster safety and improve communication among students, speculation that patrollers now have to report other students for disciplinary infractions, such as alcohol consumption, has resounded across campus.

The Campus Patrol has long been one of the more atypical employment opportunities available on campus. Founded in the early 1970s, the Patrol boasts an extensive history as a student-run operation that aims to improve security on campus without direct oversight from the College. In the past, Patrol members surveyed outside areas on campus, seeking to prevent or report threats to student safety. Although patrollers are employees of the College and are paid like any other student-employment position, the Patrol's website boasts that it "functions independently of the college administration." Patrollers cooperate with Security officers, but do not follow their directives.

Patrol, however, requires a large financial investment from the College. In the past, its members worked frequently and with flexible schedules, accumulating much more pay than typical student employees. Indeed, the group advertises unabashedly on its website that it is "the best paying job available to Vassar students." As a result, adminstrators across the College's divisions considered ways to better employ the Patrol so the group could justify its funding.

In light of this, the Drug and Alcohol Education Committee (DEC), a group of administrators, faculty and students formed under the Dean of the College office, proposed a shift in the duties of patrol last year. The Committee's proposal sought to bring the Patrol inside residential buildings to foster a culture in which students take a larger role in enforcing the College's social regulations.

Associate Director of Residential Life Richard Horowitz, who sat on the Committee and helped shape its proposal, said Vassar students often don't communicate their discomfort about behaviors like excessive noise or drinking directly to each other. To wit, a limited security force struggles to provide consistent enforcement. "They [students] had to largely try to ignore such harmful behaviors because of the lack of ongoing enforcement and the Vassar community doesn't encourage informal peer-to-peer resolution of such things due to the fear of ostracism or being harmfully labeled or perceived," he wrote in an e-mailed statement.

He added, "The many calls made to Security last year about behaviors such as loud music served as evidence. It was suggested that the reason for this situation was the extremely limited amount of ongoing enforcement of behavioral expectations and the belief that students have removed themselves from any related leadership role."

To rectify this situation, the Committee suggested the Patrol system be modified to act as a student-led source of security within the dorms. The college administration decided to enact the proposal before the beginning of this school year. Now, patrollers are expected to walk through the dormitories where they are posted to identify threats to security, such as vandalism or suspicious persons. They will also encourage communication between students; if a student tells a patroller someone is playing music too loudly, the patroller will encourage the complainant to approach his peer directly rather than call in a noise complaint to Security.

The new Patrol design, however, has been met with negative reactions from the student body. Some, learning of altered duties of Patrol, assumed the College was redirecting the time-honored student organization to indict other students for behavioral infractions. In a meeting at the beginning of the year, seven student leaders who supervise Patrol met with representatives from the DEC to discuss the new initiative. After that meeting, four resigned.

"I really don't know why they quit," said Associate Director of Student Conduct Batia Epelbaum, who was present at that meeting and helped devise Patrol's new responsibilities. She asserted that no patroller is supposed to report another student for the possession of alcohol. If a patroller observes another student holding a beer in a hallway, she said, "They might say something to them, like, ‘You might want to put that away.' But that's it. We're not looking for them to be a documenting authority."

But that policy is not reflected in much of the dialogue among students. On the popular Vassar social media site SayAnythingVC some users insisted that the changes represent a covert attempt by the college administration to make students report each other. Others charged the patrol was being forced to act as a security force because the College refused to pay for professional security officers. Horowitz, in a move atypical of administrators, engaged detractors on the site, identifying himself and stating the rational behind the changes. Trying to reach out to angry opponents of the new Patrol, he wrote, "I can understand why students might oppose participating in upholding any of VC's behavioral expectations to the slightest degree as students have removed themselves from the executive branch of VC's governance over the past five to 10 years. It's actually the only part of governance at VC that isn't shared."

Still, students voiced strong concern. Epelbaum said she was mystified by the allegations. "There's a lot of misinformation on SayAnything," she said. "When I explain it to students and they understand that it is a student to student thing, they soon become positive about it."

VSA Vice President for Student Life Charlie Dobb '12 expressed similar confusion at the response the new Patrol design has received from students. "I've never seen a situation in which there were such disparate stories," he said. Students have approached him, expressing concern about policies that the administrators have explicitly disavowed. "Some kind of communication breakdown happened here," he said. "Something about the content got lost in the shuffle."

He thinks that the DEC may have been nervous about issuing a detailed mandate to an organization that has been historically directed solely by students. As a result, he said, unspecific guidelines issued to patrollers may have contributed to unjustified speculation. "I think the administration might have been better off issuing a more clear proposal," he said. "But I don't understand why there has been so much confusion on this issue."

Last week, patrollers began their new duties. The operation is still in a transitional phase; patrollers do not yet have desks to sit at between walkthroughs and the staff is not full. But the Patrol's remaining leaders are moving forward with operations, hoping to leave recent controversy about their organization behind. Supervisor Hunter Furnish ‘13, said, "At first, like everyone else, I was very much against the idea of all of the changes [the administration] wanted to make, largely because it infringed so much upon what Patrol has been for decades, both with responsibilities and culturally. However, after having more open discussion and conversations about it I became much more optimistic."

The past few days have been extremely busy for Patrol's supervisors as they conduct trainings for new and old staff about their responsibilities within the dormitories. "We're still in that growing pains transition stage," said Furnish. "Patrol is not weak right now, though, just adjusting. In fact, our roster is larger then usual and filled with patrollers who want to work, so I'm really enjoying that side of things."