While students studying abroad in Florence are not under the same curfew policy as last spring’s group a modified curfew is part of International Programs’ concerted effort this year to curb excessive late-night drinking and protect students’ safety.
For the first two weeks of class Sept. 28 to Oct. 12 students must return to the Florence program’s residential villa by 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday.
“This is in place to help the students to get adjusted into a new environment ” Florence program director Elizabeth Whatley wrote in an e-mail. “Safety is our first concern and the city of Florence has changed over the past five years so we need to do whatever we can to keep [the students] safe.”
However after those first two weeks students are allowed to be out past 2 a.m. one day out of the Sunday-through-Thursday week. If a student returns to the villa past 2 a.m. twice in one week only that student will be put back on a 1 a.m. curfew for the remainder of the semester with no consequences to any of the other students.
Florence the only International Program to have such a restriction during Hall’s five years as director instituted a curfew from February2009 to April of this year.
After Whatley expressed concerns about some students’ behavior and the amount of time spent late into the nights Charles Hall dean of International Programs instituted a curfew of 1 a.m. from Sundays to Thursdays.
“I got word from the director of the program that a significant minority of students were putting themselves in danger Hall said. We felt there were poor choices on the part of a few to stay out excessively late in the city of Florence [combined] with excessive drinking.
Hall said the curfew was implemented February of 2009 with the intent to protect — not punish — students.
“The curfew is not a punishment ” Hall said. ” [It] is intended to curb what we felt were poor choices on the part of a few to stay out excessively late in the city of Florence combined with excessive drinking. “
The shift in the city’s safety over the past few years was the primary motive behind implementing the curfew.
“The city of Florence is a different type of place than it was five years ago. It’s a much smaller city and so the concentration of areas that are not safe late at night tend to be more readily available to students than say in a big city Hall said.
Despite the director’s and dean’s emphasis on personal safety, the curfew announcement was met with indignation by the students.
I certainly got a lot of e-mail responses about it as I would have expected particularly from people who were not the ones making the poor choices Hall said.
When asked about the possibility of a curfew being extended to other programs, Hall stressed the implementation of a curfew—the one in Florence being the first in his five years as dean— as a last resort.
It’s not something that was a choice just for Florence. Any program that we find students making poor choices if we feel like a significant number are doing that we will have the option. We hope that we won’t ever have to do it. The last choice would be to impose a curfew Hall said.
In the event that students studying abroad are ever found exhibiting unacceptable behavior, Hall expressed his desire to try to limit consequences to only those responsible.
I think in the future we’re going do our utmost to maybe do a better job of knowing exactly who the individuals might be and dealing with those individuals rather than trying to deal with those across the board he said.
According to junior Jeffrey Rozman, who was studying in Florence last spring, the manner in which the original curfew was announced was an issue.
We got an e-mail from Dean Hall announcing that we were going to be put on a curfew and then a kind of general disappointment for our program. And this was without any prior warning or anything leading up to it Rozman said.
In addition to this, some students said they were not contributing to the risky behavior and considered the curfew was unjust to them.
My initial reaction was that it was inappropriate … to receive an e-mail that said ‘I’m really disappointed in all your actions'” said junior Benjamin Van Horn. “I was working on a research paper all week. It was just really frustrating.”
Hall said he recognizes the problem with extending a restriction to an entire group of students when not all of them were exhibiting inappropriate behavior.
“That’s the unfortunate thing about a curfew and the thing that I felt bad about: That there were a lot of students making good choices and yet because of the choices of a few they got affected by the curfew he said.
Students expressed their frustrations about restrictions that resulted due to the curfew.
There [are] things you can do in Florence that revolve around the night that don’t involve drinking or going to the club. Going out walking around taking in the feeling of Florence and deep conversations you’re going to have with friends those are the things you’re going to remember. Giving up that was a big deal for me Rozman said.
Vanhorn pointed out what he said were other problems.
I couldn’t even go to a rock show if I wanted to. I was asking if I could go to these like Italian rock concerts but they go till like 2 3 in the morning and I couldn’t go even if I didn’t have class the next days. There are limitations to experiencing the culture any hour of the day if you’re not allowed to be part of it then Van Horn said.
According to Rozman, the curfew clashed with the culture’s societal norm of staying out late.
Even as far as going out goes it wasn’t even practical for the culture because people in Florence don’t even go out till midnight. It’s about a half hour from the villa to any place we were heading. By the time we got there we had to turn around and head back Rozman said.
Despite the general grumbling concerning the curfew, some students see it as a method of keeping them accountable, being reminded of the fact that Florence remains the most competitive program, and one with a rigorous courseload regardless.
Sophomore Cara Strever, who is currently studying in Florence for the year, said, I don’t mind having the partial curfew. If I’m staying out till 3 a.m. multiple times during the week then my ability to do well in school would be lessened. As students of a prestigious university our education should top the priority list.”
While it’s still fairly early in the semester so far Whatley reports that students have been respectful of the temporary curfew and the amount of schoolwork given appears to be curbing their ability to stay out extremely late at all.
Sophomore Veronica Merrick said “The coursework here is so rigorously demanding between the time spent in the classroom and out of it that I’m lucky if I even get to blog and Facebook every night.”
Aaron Dowler a sophomore said “No one has time to be out past 2 a.m. during the school week. They are killing us with homework. Try going out when you have 45 chapters of the Bible to read by tomorrow.”
Eunice Chong a freshman who applied to the Florence program for the 2010 through 2011 year expressed mixed feelings about the prospect of a curfew.
“It didn’t bother me that much but I still think it restricts us from experiencing the whole culture though because Florence is known for the nightlife and it starts at midnight.” Chong said. “We are there to study though.”
Kristina McClenon who applied to the Lausanne program said “It probably would not influence my decision to apply but I definitely don’t agree with it. The Italian culture goes out late in general they drink espressos late at night after dinner and being out late doesn’t necessarily mean drinking. I applied to Lausanne for my general education schedule not what I heard about [the curfew]. “
Hall said
he sincerely hopes that the curfew does not curb prospective applicants from looking into the Florence program.
“We don’t want to be known as keeping you in a cocoon. We want you to make choices and we want you to make mistakes he said. But we don’t want those mistakes to be ones that will somehow affect you permanently in the future ones that would do permanent damage on you physically emotionally or spiritually.”