Individualize student treatment

Last spring, I lived in a senior house. I was only a sophomore, and it was only for one semester, but it worked out well. When I moved into the house, there was no bed, no desk, and no Wesleyan-issued dresser for my clothes. So I had to take the responsibility of acquiring all these goods on my own dollar. Then, as ResLife is known to do, in the middle of second semester, they administered an online survey, “Should ResLife stock woodframe houses?” The funny thing about this question is that although the entire student body had the opportunity to answer the survey, only one fourth of the people responding lived in a senior wood-frame house and knew what the outcomes would mean. The students spoke and, in the fall of 2006, ResLife equipped all senior houses with big beds, new sofas, and TV stands. I am going out on a limb here, but I am the only junior who lived in a senior house as a sophomore, and I am paying the consequences (To note: I know of another sophomore who lived in a senior house, but he is abroad this semester). So, summer went by and like many other students, I returned to campus two weeks ago and went to the storage locker where for the past three months I paid to store the furniture and belongings I acquired living with seniors. I called Physical Plant to ask them if they would pick up the desk issued by Wesleyan that I do not need. The answer, I should have guessed, was dictated by policy and not by a person. $250 is how much it will cost me to have a desk picked up and stored by the university. Though it would take five minutes to load the desk away from my apartment (on-campus) and move it into the Physical Plant storage lockers that I happen to live next to (Pearl at Court Street), the University refuses to acknowledge a situation that is basically one in a class of 675. To the class of 2010: If you think coming to Wesleyan means individual attention, dedication from all administrative departments, and a way to avoid the bureaucracy of large public universities, think again. Wesleyan is all checks and no balances, policy over persons, and enough red tape to stretch from Freeman all the way to where O’Rourkes (kinda) still stands.