Before visitation hours, a male student was lurking in the hallways of the female dorm Bateman Hall with no residential director or assistant in sight. An oncoming resident heading toward her room waved at him as if it were common for him to be there.
“This happens all the time. You see boys walking up and down the hallways in the morning time,” said Ryann Nafe, resident of Bateman.
There have been claims that rules are not only broken in the dorms but also not enforced. Residents of Bateman mentioned loud noise, men in the rooms before visitation hours, verbal and sometimes physical arguments with nothing being done about it by the residential director or the assistants of Bateman Hall. There have been numerous incidents reported to campus safety for the past month concerning these claims including non-students trespassing.
“RDs are suppose to keep track but she [Bateman’s residential director] doesn’t. It’s the rules and it’s not suppose to be happening, but people don’t monitor it,” said Nafe.
Unique Ray, a resident of Batemen, said she has reported noise coming from suitemates but the problem persists.
According to Angela Nunez, director of Residential Life, the residential assistants are assigned to be on duty from 8 p.m-12 a.m. Visitation is from 8 p.m-11:30 a.m. It is not a requirement for RAs assigned to be there before visitation time starts. The RAs are also students of TJC paid to aid the RDs in dorm responsibilities.
RDs are assigned four hours to be in the hall and are usually on call throughout most of the day. There are no specific time schedule concerning when the RDs have to be onsite. There is one RDs and about three RAs per dorm hall. Each dorm hall houses between 40-150 students.
“Our staff is not there 24-hours a day. It is also up to our students to let us know what’s going on,” said Angela Nunez.
“If there is something going on, we let them know that our office is open,” said Jade Gomez, assistant director of Residential Life.
In Bateman Hall, there are cameras positioned in the middle of the hallway ceilings. Campus Safety monitors the cameras and if they catch a violation, they will contact Residential Life. According to Nunez, they meet with the student and decide the outcome by the severity of the situation.
The residents in Bateman mentioned ongoing disagreements between roommates and suitemates. Some of these arguments contain profanity, threats,
and even physical disputes.
“A lot of people get into it,” said Sakeedra Black, resident of Bateman.
“Part of living on campus is adjusting and some [residents] never had to live with anyone before,” said Nunez.
Nunez said that disputes are handled first by the residential assistants and if there is no resolution then it escalates to the RD of the dorm. If rooms are available elsewhere on campus, one of the residents may be able to move out.
However a threat is taken seriously and an incident report is filled out with the police. Both residents involved would have to talk with Nunez.
“If a student feels like something is not being done, come talk to me. I try really hard to have a open-door policy,” said Nunez.
