As many of us at Goshen College have noticed — despite having not received a heads-up from GC Residence Life — there has been a new policy implemented about ID card access on campus. This policy, based on a concern for student and campus safety, prioritizes needing an invitation to enter living spaces instead of assuming you’re welcome.

Last year, GC Residence Life was approached by residents of Yoder One who felt uncomfortable in their hall because of the frequent foot traffic of students using the first floor as a hallway between the connector and the apartments. 

As one can imagine, the Yoder one residents were not able to feel like their floor was entirely their space or very safe, given the almost-constant presence of other students using their area whenever they pleased. It was this dynamic that encouraged GC to reevaluate the range of accessibility our ID cards have.

Additionally, I have been informed of the ways in which Goshen College has been lagging behind other universities in implementing more restrictive access for students, with the goal of having students be welcomed into others’ living spaces.

While it is understandable that Goshen would feel the need to join this movement towards creating a safer campus, I argue that the way they went about making this change was too much, too fast. 

The speed and uncompromising way with which this decision was made makes me wonder if Goshen enacted this policy in the way they’ve seen other universities do, rather than in consideration of the unique needs and interests of our student body. I pose this question in part because of the lack of information distributed to students. 

One would think that a policy that affects the entire student body and is a change to the norms of previous years would be important enough for a campus-wide email — or at least a communicator announcement. What’s more, this is similar to Goshen’s alcohol policy, particularly the consequential portion, that is now also more severe but whose changes were only communicated to the athletes, rather than the whole campus. I don’t know about you all, but these discrete changes don’t strike me as actions that demonstrate work towards creating an honest, inclusive community. 

Likewise, I am concerned about how this promotes relationship-building on campus,   especially as it relates to those of us living in Intentional Living Communities, like East and Howell. This year, all of us living in the campus houses were denied our first choices for Housing — the apartments — and were left with only the option of living in an ILC; how intentional of a community is it really then? To compound this, we now cannot even access the residence buildings where all of our classmates and peers live. For me, and others in a similar situation, this feels like we have been forcefully isolated from our friends and from campus itself.

Ultimately, my issue with this restrictive policy lies in the way that GC residence life directors have been unwilling to hear the voices of students who do not feel like this is the appropriate direction for our campus to take. 

In speaking towards Chandler Buchfeller, Director of Residence Life and Housing,   let this be specific and solution-oriented enough: give all upperclassmen access to upperclassmen residence halls, give all underclassmen access to the dorms, but adhere to the quiet hour policies that limit hours of accessibility. 

As for Yoder one, maybe that floor is left inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t live there because of the unique position of that space and its potential misuse. At the very least, welcome a conversation where students can voice their concerns instead of giving a “this is how it is,” response.

 

Ellie is a third year social work major with minors in spanish and peace & justice studies from Bluffton, Ohio. She is a leader for the Prevention Intervention Network and part of Voices of the Earth.