Photo by Marisa Padilla
Since the infamous housing shortage last semester, Pepperdine’s Housing and Residence Life office has been a recipient to many angry calls and emails. On Aug. 12, the Housing Office wrote in an email that in order to respect the living space of students, housing will “no longer be emptying the trash or surface cleaning” apartments. Arguing that this provides a more realistic living experience, the email further explained that on-campus residents will be subject to periodic inspections. Following “constructive feedback” from residents and their parents, housing quickly reissued that for the 2014-2015 school year, they will honor the 2014-2015 Student Handbook commitment to ensure that “apartment bathrooms are cleaned on a weekly basis.”
Facing criticism of the attempted housing regulation, Associate Dean of Students and Director of HRL Jon Mathis explained that “budget was not a part of that conversation.” Due to the suspicion of many students that removing housekeeping was due to budget cuts, the claim to “respect the living space of students” came off as a convenient euphemism. “I would be offended too [as a student if that was the impression],” Mathis offered. The ordeal, as he explains it, was a conversation that started months in advance in order to prepare students for post-college life. Mathis also clarified that the “educational tool” was “only intended for apartment style housing.”
To address the concerns of the student body, Mathis said that no one from housekeeping was ever going to lose their job or take pay cuts. Rather, he insists that housing will “begin a conversation with [the students] and seek input and feedback” on how to address students’ needs. In other words, this ordeal can be best described as miscommunication-based angst. Mathis senses a “growing distrust from students” of housing, but insists that housing exists to serve the student body — in a process best described as “messy.”
I quickly questioned this movement to “prepare students” for post-college life. As far as a “realistic” living experience is concerned, Pepperdine housing enforces a slew of restrictions. In addition to periodic walk-ins and check-ups, candles are banned, and past 1 a.m, students are not allowed to stay in a room with the opposite sex. If there is to be a conversation, will other “realistic experiences” be called into question? “There are limits,” Mathis answered. For instance, candles will always be seen as a fire hazard, while the university imposes certain guidelines that housing must abide by. In other words, the conversation that housing wishes to start is limited, but as it appears, promising.
I think this raises larger questions about the extent that educational intuitions such as Pepperdine should prepare students for life outside university. I tend to agree with essayist William Deresiewicz when he says that “college is an opportunity to stand outside the world for a few years, between the orthodoxy of your family and the exigencies of career, and contemplate things from a distance.” In other words, is it truly necessary or beneficial to push university regulation, however trivial, in a way that is completely “realistic?” Keeping in line with the Liberal Arts-esque pride of maintaining focus on the humanities and teaching, let us keep whatever conversation that ensures on how students of Seaver College, in these four of five years of “retreat” from life, can become greater conveners and sparks of talent, assemblers of ideas and inspiration and effective agents of local and global development. As far as becoming better stewards of our bathroom floors? It almost seems like a conversation too trivial to entertain.
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Follow Justina Huang on Twitter: @huanderwoman
