Committees at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Durham College are reviewing the institutions’ codes of conduct and considering extending these codes to student behaviour off-campus. If the code of conduct were to apply to off-campus behaviour, issues such as vandalism, littering and noisy parties could be dealt with by the university with punishments such as community service and loss of university privileges.
However, many students at these schools do not agree with the idea of double-policing.
“Double policing is an unfair attempt for control,” said Jessica McCarthy, a first-year commerce student at UOIT. “This isn’t high school anymore. The university and the college aren’t paid to babysit us.”
McCarthy said students have certain expectations when it comes to living off campus.
“There are hazards from living near a campus; it should be a factor when deciding whether to live there,” McCarthy said. “Presently a large portion of the community [is made up of] students of Durham College and UOIT. I can’t see how double-policing is beneficial for us.”
McCarthy also said most university students are legal adults and should be treated as such.
“Not all of the people who go to the college and university are young adults,” she said. “We are all of age and should start being treated as such, or we’re going to have problems down the road. We are students, yes, but that’s our career for the moment. What if we extended this double policing to all careers? I’m sure that [people with careers] do some not-so-neighbour-pleasing things. Would it be fair to fire them for infractions?”
Amy England, UOIT’s student association president, said she is also against the policy review. “There are already federal, provincial and municipal laws to deal with what happens outside of the school and so what goes on off-campus should not be dealt with on campus,” she said. “We do not believe that students should be held to a higher code of conduct for their behaviour off school property.”
Students at UOIT have protested the review at recent council meetings and England is confident that they will be heard.
“We have a very open relationship with our university,” she said. “We have faith that our university will listen to students and we will be valued members at the table.”
Other Canadian universities currently extend their code of conduct to off-campus behaviour. Queen’s University, for example, has had off-campus policing in effect since 1850.
Meagan VandenTillaart, a first-year sociology student at Queen’s said she is not convinced of its effectiveness.
“I don’t think the policy makes students behave any different than they would if we didn’t have it. Our school lives should be separate from our personal lives. By combining them, it’s putting pressure onto our personal business.”
She said she considers it to be an invasion of privacy.
The university review is continuing and there is no word yet whether the policy will definitely be adopted.