It’s unfair, an outcry and disrespectful, right?

The authority changing it is rules without notification to those who are supposed to follow is downright ridiculous, isn’t it?

Well, in regards to how the authority here at the University, the administration, deals with changing it’s rules, The Source, students have been making those claims lately. And they have every right to.

They’ve been making them about the recent health and safety inspections that were conducted within the past two weeks. They were made because this year, such inspections were conducted without giving notice to the students. That practice, notifying residents of when health and safety inspections are, was routine in the past.

Unfair, an outcry and disrespectful, as stated before, are the words that students have come to us at The Informer with after having health and safety inspections of their residential living assignment conducted without any notice.

Those words chosen, they said, because when the inspections were being conducted, they said to the resident assistants that were conducting them that they had no idea they were going to get inspections.

After stating such claims to their resident assistants, those resident assistants replied with a comment similar to, “Well, you should’ve checked The Source.”

At such a point in the conversation, we can enter the problem. The problem, of students not being aware of The Source and all it has to offer.

One reason for such uninformed behavior, and a primary reason for, is the fact that we students sign The Source once becoming new students at the University, and that’s pretty much it. That’s pretty much the only time students look at The Source, if even then. Because, really, how often to you check The Source?

But at this point in our conversation, enter the problem of just that, not checking The Source.

A pretty out there task, checking The Source, as it is the formal document, with all it’s fancy language, that defines what we can and cannot do as a resident on this campus.

However, regardless of out there of a task it is, in The Source you will find the stipulation that it can be changed whenever necessary, as it is explained in the second page of it. That stipulation alone, is substantial enough to make you want to check The Source whenever possible.

Whenever a ruling institution, whether it be a document or public figure, changes it’s policy on how it rules, such documentation should be thoroughly looked over. The Federal Government does it whenever the Constitution changes, so with The Source being pretty much the constitution of on campus residents’ we should look through it thoroughly as well.

However to that though, in an environment in which students are experiencing new adventures in terms of academics, professional insight and social responsibility, in ways that test them to extremes not reached by many other experiences, I am with the students side.

Not entirely, before I go any further though, as negligence is no defense against any crime or allegation made. It still is up to the students to maintain knowledge and understanding of again, that governing institution.

But having said that, some help, some assistance, some form of an assisting hand, if you will, from the administration to make sure students are aware of such changes, would be nice.

While yes, when a resident moves into their residential hall in the fall and signs a key receipt, they also agree that they read and understood the housing contract, which states that such inspections will occur as relating to the The Source.

The final point in my conversation, where I offer a solution to this problem, is here: at said key receipt signing, present documents that outline and state the changes that have been made to The Source that will affect how residents live on campus.

I understand that we students must learn to maturely follow the law of the land and keep up to date with it, as again, negligence is no defense by any means. But for the sake of allowing college students to enjoy those first few months of school, which we all know they are all excited about, provide that extra bit of communication effort, instead of what appears to be an attempt to pass new regulations without notice to those being affected.