Margaret Nance residents vote to change visitation

By Kaitlyn Schallhorn

schallhornk@mytjnow.com

Many students, such as Josh Billingsley, junior, spend warm, breezy days on the porch of Margaret Nance. Now men can travel into the residence hall past midnight on weekends, staying the night. Photo by Kathleen Brown • brownk@mytjnow.comThanks to its all-female residents, Margaret Nance’s visitation policy is now self-regulated on Saturdays. 

Cynthia Cassens, director of Residence Life, said the entire process of changing the visitation policy was student led.  Several Margaret Nance residents approached their hall council in the fall 2010 semester and worked with each other, their residential learning coordinator (RLC)  and Cassens herself to draft proposals. 

Residents of Margaret Nance approved the proposals.

The policy, which can be found online under the department of residence life’s website, states that the proposal needed to have “a simple majority vote with at least 66% of the building residents voting” in order to be passed. 

Students went through the process and did what they needed to do, Cassens said.  

“[Students} thought of the possible problems and figured out how to handle them.  So far it’s working out great.”

The new visitation policy was implemented the last weekend in January, and so far there have been no problems, Cassens said.

Roommates are required to fill out agreement forms.  If just one roommate does not want a male to spend the night, then one will not be allowed in the room.  

Katie Sardelli, Resident Learning Coordinator for Margaret Nance, said it has been a surprisingly smooth process.  There have been no complaints to her from students or parents about the change in the visitation policy. 

The change has not impacted resident assistants either, Sardelli said.  They have to do their regular visitation duties and make sure guests are not violating the policy.  Males are issued guest cards for overnight. 

Marie Williams, freshman interior design major, is a much happier resident of Margaret Nance now that the new visitation policy is in place.

“I didn’t like the idea that I came to college to be told I could only see certain people at certain times,” Williams said.  “It was like having a curfew again.”

While Williams was not one of the female students who started the whole process, she actively knew what was going on in the hall council meetings throughout the entire time.  She was even confident in the outcome of the proposal.  

“I knew what was going to happen because the entire building wanted it to be passed,” Williams said.

Williams has already used the new policy.  

“Nothing went wrong, and no one even cared,” she said.  

She and her roommate have both filled out the agreement, but have also made up their own rules.  They do not allow guys to be in the room if they are both there.  

Although the change in Margaret Nance is running smoothly so far, it is currently only a pilot.  The change is not official and has not yet been finalized.  At the end of the semester, staff will evaluate and determine if the new visitation policy is worth keeping.  The evaluation will include looking at the violations from the semester. 

However, Cassens does not foresee many problems with this new policy.  

“It’s no different than any other resident hall,” Cassens said. “Saturday night here [Margaret Nance] is just like Saturday night in Wofford.”