Author: Michael Darling
We find ourselves looking at the end of yet another semester at Oxy and the first semester of all first-year housing. By now, it has become clear to me that this program is not working. The first-year housing system only serves to isolate the first-years from the rest of the Oxy community and keeps these students from learning from the experiences of older students. This leads to an inability to help first-years grow as students and members of the student body as a whole.
One of the often cited reasons for the creation of the first-year dorms was the need to build a sense of community amongst the new students. While I do not disagree with the value of knowing others in your own year who are also venturing into a new experience, by putting first-years in residence halls that only contain first-years, they will only know first-years that live in their hall. Last year, a friend of mine lived in Braun Hall, which served as the lone first-year-only dorm. Unfortunately, because of this, he hardly knew anyone who lived outside of Braun. As such, he only knows a small handful of juniors and seniors. If this happens with this year’s crop of first-years and continues as the years go by, we will have a campus where people only know those in their own class and a few people in upper classes.
The FM, which I believe stands for First-year Mentor (although some of the FMs I’ve spoken with aren’t sure what it is supposed to stand for), is an Oxy student paid by the school to create programs and a sense of community amongst the first-years. They serve as an older “normal student” that first-years can talk to. Although they have no real power to write people up, they are still expected to enforce the rules and regulations. The administration created the FM position in a misguided attempt to deal with this situation.
This leads to the other main reason for creation of first-year only housing: parties and alcohol. The assumption was that without older students who could buy it for them, it would be harder for first-years to acquire alcohol. This should work in theory, but instead first-years will turn to fake IDs so that they can buy liquor. This was also the case in Braun last year, according to some of last year’s residents. It was well known during the first month of my first year that Braun was the place to go for a good time.
The lack of older students that are not being paid by the school to help out first-years creates a void of responsibility and proper actions. I would like to say that I am very much in favor of parties and having a good time. However, I also think there’s a fine line between a good time and senseless vandalism and destruction. Earlier this year, fights were happening at off-campus house parties more often than usual. These fights were often caused by first-year guys. Additionally, at least three times this semester, I have come back to my room in Haines only to find that some guy came through the annex and decided it was a good idea to go through the building, break things, write on walls-and to top it all off, urinate on the door of one of the RAs. It turns out that the guy who was responsible for these incidents does not even live in Haines.
Now, if there were older students who were living with the first-years, then they would be able to teach the first-year students how to drink properly and not go about committing random acts of vandalism. Unfortunately, under current circumstances, the first-years do not have anyone who can do this. They can’t be told by RAs or FMs how to drink because these students are being employed by the school to enforce law and order. But for many first-years, these are the only older students that are readily on hand.
The Occidental administration seems to operate under the assumption that first-years will not drink unless they are influenced to do so. However, they seem to forget that this is college, that people are going to drink and that not even a campus-wide prohibition will stop this. The trick to decreasing alcohol-related incidents is to stress responsibility, and this includes placing first-years in residence halls where older students live.
Most of the first-years I know are responsible people who know how to have a good time without creating chaos. Sadly, I am not sure if they are the exception or the rule. Based on the actions of some of the members of this class that I have seen, I fear that they are the former. I hope that next year, Occidental will reconsider this plan, although knowing how things are done around here, the all-first-year housing program is probably being viewed as an overwhelming success and the program will continue for years to come.
In reality, as time goes by, the program will most likely lead to a disconnect between the various class years at the school, to the point where people will, for the most part, only know those people who are also in their class. Without interaction between classes, the Oxy community will no longer be one group, it will be a collection of groups divided by class with few interclass relations. Without the help of older students who can serve as actual mentors, first-years will not be shown how to behave when drinking or partying.
Michael Darling is a sophomore History major. He can be reached at mdarling@oxy.edu.
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