Scripps College drew objections from some of its seniors when it changed the campus move-out deadline from Monday, May 14 to Sunday, May 13.
The administration originally made the deadline 12 p.m. May 13 after moving the Commencement ceremony to 5 p.m. May 12. After receiving complaints from students, the move-out deadline was pushed to 1 p.m.
“They’ve always had 24 hours in the past,” Megan Lewis SC ’12 said. “I just felt like it was a really fast turnaround.”
Scripps’s senior class representatives asked students who were concerned about the move-out deadline to present their complaints at Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Rebecca Lee’s office hours, Megan Fenton SC ’12 said.
“At that point it didn’t seem like she was willing to adjust the [deadline],” Fenton said.
“The move-out deadline was set for mid-day Sunday because residential life and maintenance staff have to work many hours after the official closing time,” Lee wrote in an e-mail to TSL. If the deadline was moved so that the students had 24 hours to move out after graduation, staff would not finish working until late at night, she wrote.
After the meeting with concerned students, Lee pushed the deadline back from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
“They’re being condescending by changing it just an hour. It’s like a pat on the head,” Fenton said. “I was a little bit shocked.”
“It almost seemed like they were giving us this one hour to make us quiet,” Lewis said.
There is another obstacle to changing the move-out time on Sunday, Lee said.
“The deadline was moved only an hour because we want to avoid staff working well into the night on a day that also happens to be a family holiday, Mother’s Day,” Lee wrote.
“I can definitely see both sides,” Lewis said, adding that the Mother’s Day holiday is a “legitimate factor” in the administration’s decision not to make a drastic change to the deadline.
Sydney Goings SC ’12 said the students are “fighting a losing battle” because of the relationship the administration wants to maintain with the staff.
“I’m sure the dean gets these complaints every year and this year it’s just magnified because of the change,” Goings said.
Fenton and Lewis said that this was the first time in their four years when they had been unhappy with the administration’s responses to student opinions.
“I’ve worked with the administration in the past and it’s never been an issue,” Fenton said. “I would have totally respected the decision to leave the time on Sunday. It makes it hard to swallow when they move it back just an hour.”