Sessions’ residents having problems, again

This archived article was written by: Keenan Ryan

Throughout the year, residents of Sessions have often felt as if they have been treated unequally. Problems include quiet hours, curfew restrictions, problems with vacuuming early in the morning and even sanitation issues concerning the bathrooms.
Recently, Sessions residents had a problem on Wednesday, April 14, concerning quiet hours. “A group of us Sessions residents were in the commons area around 11 p.m. The group was playing a game of throwing a small ball around, as well as watching TV. Around 11:10 p.m., a RA came out to tell us to keep down the noise level.
“So we turned down the TV volume, but continued to play the game with the ball. No later than five minutes, another RA came out and told us to be quiet again. The RA told us that if they continued to be loud they would be written up. We all told her that we didn’t really care if she did write us up because we didn’t feel that we had done anything wrong.
“The RA left the room and returned with a notepad to write everyone’s name down. The group of us thought that the incident had been taken care of and was over. A half hour later a campus policeman entered the building to talk to us about a complaint made by the RA. The officer had intended to give all of us a ticket for the loud behavior.
When he started talking to us we complained about not having any rights. The officer had no idea that there were more issues involved. He decided that tickets weren’t necessary but suggested that we should talk to the hall director the next day. We were notified soon after that we must see Bill Osborn, (assistant dean of the students) as soon as possible,” said Kim White.
The students were not allowed to discuss any of their conversation with Osborn. This situation is one of many about which the students have complained. There are even problems with when the vacuum cleaner is being used.
“For the past couple of months, an RA has been working as a janitor as well. One of the jobs is to vacuum the hallways. He started to vacuum at around 8:15 a.m. about every other day. This was disrupting my sleep as well as other residents in the hall. Delon Lee asked for him to stop one morning and the RA stopped. Just a couple of days later, the RA started vacuuming in the morning again.
“Lee was again disturbed and asked him to stop. The RA explained that he was an employee and could work at any time he wanted and if Lee wanted to change the time of vacuuming, he would have to talk to Hank Savage. Then I was awakened and asked him to stop because he kept on waking me up whenever he would vacuum. He did not stop and continued vacuuming, which I thought was disrespectful for an employee to do to a resident,” explained Kara Smith.
“I don’t want everyone to think that Sessions is a bad place to live I just think that the problems that we’ve had this year could have easily been avoided,” stated Lindsey Lundell.
“I have had a blast with my friends in Sessions. I think that it is outrageous that we are treated like kids. Sessions is known for its students. That being said, we are not known for being this big party hall. Other halls are having problems with vandalism and here we have to deal with campus police because we are watching television before midnight. In my opinion there are bigger fish to fry,” Lee explained.