2008 Woodie Awards
Manhattan's New Visitor Policy
Steven McKenzie
Issue date: 10/1/08 Section: News
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A visitor is a "MC student who goes to see another MC student in a residence hall other than his or her own" according to the MC Student Handbook. A visitor can enter another student's resi-dence hall from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and is not allowed to stay any later than 2 a.m. From the 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. period any student that is visiting must sign in with security located within the building they are visiting. There is a two-visitor limit for one resident student.
A non-student is considered a guest and can be classified as a 'day-guest' or 'overnight-guest.' Day guests are required to sign in with the security in the student's building and both must leave a photo ID with the security guard. Day guests are required to be signed out by midnight. As with the visitor policy, each resident is allowed two guests.
The day-guest status was previously used by residents to illegally sign guests in overnight. Stu-dents are supposed to have a guest pass signed by a member of the Residence Life staff. Com-monly referred to as the "8 p.m. loophole," the restructuring of the visiting policy has closed this off.
Monetary Fines have been put in place for those the break the new rules. As stated in the Student Handbook: "If a day guest leaves after midnight, the resident's ID card will be retained and de-livered to the Residence Life office, and the resident will have a progressive fine charged to his/her account: $25 for the first violation with $25 increments for the next two violations. After a $75 fine at the third violation, the resident will lose guest privileges for a length of time, de-pending upon factors at the time of the violation. The resident may reclaim the ID in the Resi-dence Life Office after 10:00 a.m. on the next class day.
Mary Gleason, Area Coordinator of Overlook Manor, Chrysostom and Jasper Hall says the changes are not only for student safety but also "[insuring] the ideals of a Catholic college."
"We're making sure that students that have guests of the opposite sex have filled out a guest pass within 24-48 hours when the guest arrives and have gone out of their way to make sure they have a host of the same sex. We're making sure the rules are abided by," says Gleason.