After a week of debate, the offices of Campus Life and Greek Life have postponed enacting a plan that would require students in greek organizations to report their off-campus addresses to the university.
But fraternities and sororities should sigh in only temporary relief. According to Vice President of Campus Life Gail Hanson, the university may soon require all AU students to submit their off-campus addresses. And frankly, we are not pleased.
As we editorialized last week, the university insufficiently justified its greek life address database. Associate Dean of Students Sara Waldron initially said AU sought only to ensure students' safety, but we felt her concerns were much overstated. We are adults, so we labeled the university's actions as oddly precarious, slightly discriminatory and very overprotective.
Imagine our disappointment when Hanson later confirmed our troubled suspicions. Although she said the university would only use the address database to identify problem areas, the concern behind her remarks is that AU intends to monitor some of its students' behavior in some capacity.
Again, we have to question the university's reasoning. The last thing students need is another parent. Moving off-campus is a symbolic great escape from the confining subordination of communal living, and excessive university supervision undermines students' newfound independence.
True, a number of students who move off-campus are noisy, disruptive and irresponsible. But AU isn't chasing disorderly students to help the university or make a statement on conduct; it is overextending its authority at the beckoning of the local community. And while AU administrators should certainly keep neighbors' interests in mind, it shouldn't prioritize those concerns over its students.
In the end, we are left asserting the same thing we said last week when the university considered applying the address database only to greek organizations. We can only hope AU realizes that its students are more than capable of making good decisions, and that students begin acting like adults when they are treated as such.
