Finals week is quickly approaching, and the faster it comes, the more I think about morgue hours. Some students applaud morgue hours because they give them time to study before finals. These are the students who obey all the rules of morgue hours. Then there are the others, the unruly students who disobey the rules and disrupt everyone. If all of these students were disciplined, we may not have a problem, but a lot of incidents go unpunished during morgue hours.

Last semester I was yelled at by an RA (not my own) for closing the bathroom door too loud in another hallway. Yet, in my own hallway during the night someone was running up and down the hallway screaming, and no one did anything. Is there a difference in volume level between screaming and shutting a door? I think so. I’m not the only example of this flux of disciplinary action, others in my building have testified that they were yelled at about three times in first hour of morgue hours for talking in a normal tone of voice. At the same time, people down the hall were being obscenely loud and were not punished at all.

None of us were judicially disciplined for our actions, but if Residence Life is going to enforce morgue hours, then there should be some sort of standard for disciplinary action. I would have loved to see the residents making the noise in my hallway written up for disturbing the peace, but if I got yelled at by another RA one more time for shuffling my feet or speaking at a normal tone instead of whispering, I was going to scream myself.

Don’t get me wrong, morgue hours came in great for me during the week while I was studying in my room, but I am a respectful person, and I know that the shuffling of my feet didn’t cause anyone to fail a final. However, someone could have lost precious study time listening to someone screaming in the hall, or crying to their boyfriend directly outside their dorm room door. No one was yelled at or disciplined for those things, while I worried that sneezing in front of the wrong RA would get me a write up. This semester, I hope that Residence Life and the Resident Assistants will take into account a standard level of discipline that they will apply to all

students.