If life at Fairfield was all about studying and class, then I’m pretty sure nobody would go here.
And that is not to denigrate the quality of professors at this school. It does, however, speak to the fact that reading a textbook and sitting in a lecture hall does not guarantee success.
Personal experience is one of the few things that doesn’t have a price at Fairfield. Just like any internship, the lessons learned through the living process are just as important as any written test.
College is, and always will be, what you make of it, no matter what an RA, who is exactly your age, tells you about respect and responsibility.
One particular incident came to my attention when Public Safety recently went into a townhouse on an alcohol violation and proceeded to take a student, who was sleeping, out of his bed and to the Health Center.
This, by far, trumps all of the door listening and other crafty police tactics utilized by Public Safety.
Public Safety has become so robotic in its practices that it’s almost as if the officers are not even listening to you when you speak. Their nametags should just read “Sarge” because it seems like each and every one of them thinks that they’re the boss.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but whatever happened to accountability? By the time you’re a junior in college, I would like to think that you do not need a goodnight kiss and personal Public Safety tuck in.
If this is a prerogative that Public Safety maintains, then the department must have less trouble to create on this campus than I thought.
I’m not heartless, and I’ve read the statistics: each year in the United States, 1,700 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes, according to the College Drinking Prevention Web site.
Mistakes are made and then they are learned from. This has been a truth from the beginning of time. However, why should Public Safety look to avert problems that are not taking place?
It is all too easy to say that they are only trying to prevent a situation from occurring, because if that’s the logic, why not just check every room on campus? There has to be a line of personal space that even the infallible Public Safety officers cannot cross.
Associate Director of Public Safety Frank Ficko, meanwhile, took time out of his schedule and sat down for a chat. Though he would not comment specifically on the aformentioned incident, he asserted the point that Public Safety is not targeting any specific dorm or townhouse.
And as is true in most situations at Fairfield University, there are usually two sides to every story. Too bad Public Safety couldn’t comment on a specific incident.
Regardless, Public Safety’s job has flipped from law enforcement types trying to protect a harmless bunch of rich kids from themselves to the moral police on right and wrong. But protectors of justice they are not.
The worst part about the whole deal is that as much good as the department does for the overall well-being of the school, it still feels like Public Safety is out of touch with students (think Terminator 2 without the sentimental, robot role model stuff).They just call it like they see it, tight and by the book.
Fairfield, in general, relies on a don’t- ask, don’t-tell policy.
In truth, it’s pretty appropriate for college living, and we do enjoy a fairly decent amount of rights.
But creating unnecessary problems simply to justify your stature as the big man on campus is certainly in poor taste on Public Safety’s part.
They want the crime, and they want it in a timely fashion.
The whole mentality of the University is inherently flawed in that they punish kids just for the sake of punishing them. What is productive about these methods? Absolutely nothing.
There are lessons to be learned all around this campus: lessons that are essential in the growing-up process and lessons that Fairfield is impeding.
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