TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Students' Punishment Draws UT Apology

ADVERTISEMENT

By DANIELA VELZQUEZ, TBO.com

Published: February 23, 2008

Updated: 02/23/2008 12:14 am

TAMPA - The University of Tampa apologized Friday for two dorm advisers who meted out punishment reminiscent of elementary school: They told 80 honors students to write 30 times, "I will not vandalize the floor, and I will help prevent others from vandalizing."

"I assure residential students that this will not happen again," Nora Bugg, residential life assistant director, says in a statement posted Friday afternoon on the Web site of the school newspaper, The Minaret.

The writing assignment was ordered by the two residential advisers on the seventh floor of Vaughn Center, an honors floor occupied mostly by freshmen.

It came in response to vandalism and the posting of a provocative poster during an open house last weekend for prospective students and their parents. The poster said students can expect to learn about drinking and sex as well as academics at UT.

The two floor advisers called an emergency meeting Tuesday night.

"They felt we were all acting like middle-schoolers," said freshman Brianna Ebanks, 18, who attended the meeting and wrote out the statement as ordered.

The students were made to write the assignment on paper, and if they refused, they were led to think they would be put on housing probation.

"They thought it would help," Bugg said in an interview, "but that's not something that was ever approved, nor would we ever approve it."

Bugg's message was posted on the Minaret Web site shortly after she spoke with TBO .com

The two floor advisers, Alyssa Howard, 19, and Jamey Smith, 21, could not be reached for comment. They have been advisers since August, and their status is under review, Bugg said.

Some students, like Nicolas Jutigny, wonder whether the advisers abused their positions by making the floor write the lines.

"Where does the RA's power stop at?" Jutigny, a 19-year-old freshman from France, wrote in an e-mail to TBO.com.

Smith told The Minaret that the offenses on her floor merited the punishment he gave.

"Basically, if they are going to vandalize the floor and do middle-school stuff, then we are going to treat them like they are in middle school," he said.

Paul Hinrichsen, a 19-year-old freshman who lives on the floor, said in an e-mail to TBO.com, "I was especially humiliated by Jamey Smith when he yelled, 'Shut up, don't speak over Alyssa or you'll be written up.'"

Floor resident Quincy Yott, 18, thought the exercise was "annoying," but "it wasn't a big deal."

Some students, though, did refuse the order, she said. She thinks they're the ones who committed the vandalism.

"They're the stupid, immature boys," she said.

Other students were upset at having to do the assignment.

"We do spend like $30,000 a year to go here," said Fawn Testa, 19, "and I don't think we should be made to write lines."

Reporter Daniela Velzquez can be reached at (813) 259-8074 or dvelazquez@tbo.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT