Students Unhappy With Residence Life Policies

Farmingdale State College has become more and more of a validated option for education on Long Island over the last decade. With improving requirements such as GPA, SAT scores and others, the school isn’t a walk in the park to get into anymore. This has also drawn in many students from other states to come to Farmingdale as well. With that, Farmingdale has made upgrades to the residence life since I first attended school back in 2020. On the downside for residents, however, some compare the living style in the dormitories to prison, and for commuters trying to visit friends in the dorms, it seems like you have to sign your life away to do so.

I am in a fraternity here at Farmingdale State College. This has allowed me to meet hundreds of people throughout my time here. Currently, my fraternity consists of 50 active brothers, 12 of whom dorm in Orchard Hall. As a result, my friends always invite me over to hangout, whether its to watch football, play video games, or just chill before our weekend plans. This is great and I would love to take them up on their offer each and every time, but, unfortunately, I can’t. 

Farmingdale’s dorm guest policy has raised plenty of eyebrows amongst the student population as of late. Unlike most college campuses I have visited, Farmingdale requires a filled-out guest pass to be carried on you at all times. They allow guests either a day pass, that will expire on that given day at 11:00 PM, or an overnight pass, that will last 48 hours from the time the guest was signed in. The guest must remain with their host who lives in the dorm at all times. 

Seems fair enough, right, but the problem lies with the scarcity of passes, which used to be plentiful. For example, I can only get one pass a week. That prevents me from visiting on a Monday for Monday Night Football and a Thursday for Thursday Night Football. This crackdown on passes has been newly enforced by Residence Life staff; whereas, two years prior, I would get pass after pass, no questions asked. I understand that Residence Life doesn’t want people “living” in the dorms for free, but to not be allowed to visit your friends for a few hours twice a week seems unfair.

I reached out to some of my friends who live in the dorms here and this is what they had to say regarding the guest policy. I had asked if they think the guest policy is unjust and if the policy has ever affected them directly. My friend James said, “I have a handful of friends I would like to sign in at different times throughout the week, but I can’t because I am only allowed to sign in one single friend per week. I can’t sign a friend in on Monday morning and then again on Saturday night if I really wanted/needed to.” James also mentioned that while having a friend from Staten Island stay for a weekend, he only has four dining hall guest swipes for the semester. In a 16-week semester, this allows him to use one guest swipe on average every 4 weeks, which doesn’t seem reasonable at all.

Another friend of mine mentioned that a guest was turned away because his pass expired by 45 minutes. He had come from a party and was not driving his car home. When turned away by security, he was told if he wasn’t driving to call an Uber. A $55 Uber ride didn’t seem realistic for the college student. The security desk then instructed him to drive home knowing the student was drinking or to “figure it out”. Situations like this make the student population believe the Residence Life staff doesn’t care about students in the slightest bit.

My sister who attends SUNY Oneonta says her friends will just walk right into the dorms no questions asked at all hours of the night, which, of course, I don’t believe is safe, but I do believe it should be significantly easier for Farmingdale students to come into their friends’ dorms.

Safety is the biggest concern and will definitely be the reason the Residence Life staff would use if you questioned the guest policy situation to them. I can back this up by the fact that they installed an extra double door that you now have to be buzzed into twice regardless if you’re a resident or not. While safety is important, it is changes like these where the jail comparisons come in. A resident swipes their ID, the door opens. They then need to show their ID, get buzzed in and then if they decide to sign in a guest, they have to show their ID yet again and finally get a book full of guests checked to make sure they’re allowed to sign in again.

To live in Orchard Hall for a semester, including meal plan, is about $7,000. Although that may be on the lower side in comparison to other dorm rates, in this economy, that’s still expensive and allowing friends to come freely in and out of the dorms doesn’t seem to be too much to ask.

My solution would be to allow Farmingdale students to come into the dorms as they please, as they also pay a large sum of money to attend school here. Requiring dorm passes to keep tabs on guests is reasonable, but setting a limit on the number of passes, or regulating their comings and goings way too much isn’t reasonable. I believe that if a resident has a friend from out of state out for the weekend, their pass should last at least three days; that way they don’t have to plan their trip around a dorm security desk. 

At the end of the day, these draconian policies will continue to change as the Residence Life policies have not stayed the same for more than a year at a time for the last five years. That tells me that Residence Life can’t even figure it out for themselves. What they need to do is listen to  the students’ voices and come to a compromise that pleases both parties.