No longer do you have to be homosexual for your significant other to join you for the night at FAU housing.
Now, according to the 2009-2010 Housing and Residential Life Guidebook, an overnight guest is considered to be “a guest who will be present in a resident room between 2 and 7:30 a.m.” This includes both male and female guests.
The catch?
“All overnight guests must be registered with the area office or resident assistant [RA] on duty by 10 p.m.”
Residents can have guests of either sex over for up to three nights in a row, for a total of 15 nights per semester. Anyone, even residents of other FAU dorms, is considered a guest after 10 p.m., according to the new policy.
Angela Moorman, a music major and RA for the Algonquin dorms, keeps quite busy with her schedule, but this past February she devoted many hours to sitting in on a student committee that helped to create the new FAU guest policy.
“Times have changed from when our parents were in college. With the new policy, we wanted to make it realistic to the times and fair to the residents as they transition into adulthood by giving them a little more freedom, while also creating a sense of responsibility with the guest sign-in procedures.”
However, FAU doesn’t intend to enforce the policy.
“It is about an honor system,” said Jill Eckardt, director of housing. She explained that since students are being given more freedom than ever before, they are in turn expected to follow the few rules that have been set in place.
“The new policy is all about compromise. There will be a little give and take, but it contains important issues roommates should talk about,” said Eckardt.
Sudi Camose, a sophomore psychology major and second-year resident at FAU, doesn’t see the big deal in the policy change.
“Sure, they’re giving us more freedom,” said Camose. “But haven’t people already been having their boyfriends and girlfriends sleep over? I don’t think that people are going to take the time to find an RA and sign their guests in at 10 o’clock at night.”
Also, a second part to the guest policy involves a signed personalized contract between roommates. Due to various complaints regarding overnight guests staying for long periods of time without the other roommates’ permission, the goal was to produce a plan with more flexibility for students to have guests over while trying to keep track of the frequency of overnight sleepovers, in an attempt to eliminate roommate problems.
“As a resident assistant, I have heard many things regarding the guest policy that people wanted to maintain as well as some they wanted to see change,” said Angela Moorman. “So by joining the committee, I made sure that my voice and opinions would be heard.”
However, with the unveiling of the new system this fall semester, Eckardt admitted that this might not cut down on the conflicts between roommates.
“There will always be differences in values and morals,” said Eckardt, referring to the fact that some roommates will have trouble agreeing to have guests spend the night. “For me, the main objective of housing is about offering lots of different options.”
Definition of a guest:
A guest is any individual who is not a resident of the room, suite or apartment that they are visiting while on campus. This includes FAU resident students, general FAU students and family members. All guests must have prior approval by all roommates/suitemates.
For more information regarding the updated guest policy, check out the current Housing and Residential Life Guidebook, which can be found online at www.fau.edu/housing/guidebook.html.
