Matt Meiners | Opinion Co-Editor

Registering a party is something that people have very mixed feelings about here at Buena Vista University (BVU). According to University policy, whenever you want to throw a party you have to register it. The questions is, why don’t students do that then? Many students will take the chance being caught throwing a party because when you actually register the party, the RA’s and campus security are supposed to stop by.

When listening to the student body, many of them feel as though there is no consistency and fairness among residential life and campus security. So put in a simpler way, students don’t trust what the RA’s or security are going to do. You never know if because you forgot to set out some crackers during a party that you are going to get written up, or if you are one person over the 25 max, some RA’s will react to that differently. There are many reasons that at times, I don’t even trust the RA’s or campus security.

With that said, many students don’t agree with the drinking rules that BVU has. For example no beer pong, card games, or how you are only allowed to have 25 people in your suite when you throw a party. Not agreeing with rules in any place can create some form of anarchy. It doesn’t have to be violent anarchy, but to the point where people won’t follow the rules because they simply do not agree with them. In this case, people don’t register parties.

So why are these rules in place? According to Mark Kirkholm, Director of Campus Security, fire code actually only allows for ten people to be in a suite at once. This is based on the number of exits in the building and many other things. They, however, believed that BV students could be responsible enough to have twenty-five people in a suite at once. Other issues such as drinking games is for another conversation at another time.

I will admit, I am still a little questionable on whether throwing a party is worth it or not. One of the positives is that Mark Kirkholm and many others are trying very hard this year to increase communication with the student body. Doing so will create a better understanding on both ends: why BVU puts certain policy in place and why students believe those policies might be unjust.

Even though there are a lot of skeptics about registering a party, it’s like moms will say, how do you know if you like broccoli if you have never tried it? I’m not saying we all need to give into our beliefs and not have opinions on BVU’s policy. I think it is a good thing that students stand for what they believe in. It shows a passion and an interest in things that affect us currently. I’m saying that we could at least try it and see how it goes. We could also try and work with Mark Kirkholm to make the communication more effective, not have trust be an issue, and have as much consistency as possible. Even though I have doubts on certain issues, I know we will try and make it a better process.

Graphic by Justice Gage