First on QUChronicle.com: Quinnipiac students expressed outrage yesterday after learning earlier this week that a hidden video camera was discovered in the shower of a residence hall and that a resident assistant was possibly responsible.
An article in Wednesday’s Chronicle sparked a campus-wide discussion regarding the university’s decision not to discuss the camera, which was discovered last month by Troup resident Doug Manners. On Wednesday afternoon, the university’s public relations office released a statement saying only that the administration had imposed “sanctions” on the student who hid the camera.
The news startled many students who said they feel a breach of privacy had occurred in a place normally considered safe. Interviewed on campus yesterday, angry students condemned the lack of punishment toward the person believed to be responsible for placing the video camera in the shower.
“I am repulsed,” said Mike Mucchetti, a senior history major. “Do people not understand the difference between right and wrong? This only has to happen once to completely alter everyone’s opinion of this school.”
Questions are being raised because of the university’s tight-lipped approach to the situation.
“I just heard about it today. It is weird,” said Jerome Palmeri, a freshman communications major. “It is not cool that that happened. The kid should be kicked out or at least prosecuted. I wonder if this has happened before and we just did not know it.”
Seth Rothman also believes that punitive actions should be brought on the person responsible.
“He should be expelled. Why didn’t the school do anything about this,” the freshman, broadcast journalism major asked.
Steve Koumos, a freshman finance major, agreed with Rothman.
“The person responsible should be thrown out of school,” Koumos said. “This was an invasion of privacy and if that had happened to me I would be pretty upset.”
Some students feel that the actions the university did take, which were not specified, were not enough. Jocelyn Brassil, a freshman physical therapy major, believes the students should have been informed about the incident.
“The student body should have been told,” Brassil said. “This event still affects other people. By moving him to another dorm, it does not make it OK.”
Other students believe that because the person who is said to have installed the camera was an R.A. at the time of the discovery, the R.A. program itself needs to be looked into more closely.
“A huge scandal has been uncovered,” said Betsy White, a freshman English major. “The guy who did it is creepy and should not be allowed on campus. The R.A’s also need better training,”
Jen Napiorski had similar thoughts regarding the situation.
“You have to go through an interview process to become an R.A. and the fact that he went through the interview and still became an R.A. is ridiculous,” the freshman psychology major said. “He would have gotten in so much more trouble if he wasn’t an R.A.”
Quinnipiac University offered the following statement regarding the incident: “The university takes the safety and privacy of all of its students very seriously. This action had the potential to greatly compromise student privacy, and as a result, university officials have imposed sanctions on the student in question,” director of public relations, John Morgan said.
