Did you know that in addition to ink, paint, and clay, we are officially not allowed to mark campus buildings with blood? Or that while pimping is strictly prohibited, there is nothing in writing that forbids prostituting yourself?
Am I complaining here? Well, I’m not the type to whore myself out for grades, and I have no plans to smear the blood of virgins on the front steps of Duke anytime soon, so no. The rules are fine by me. The issue here is how I know these rules: I read the handbook, all fifty-some pages of fine print.
Why? Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to sign something I haven’t read.
I know what you’re thinking, it’s just a handbook, the same routine rules that go down at every college or university. No plagiarism, no illegal narcotics, no filming sex acts without the knowledge and consent of all participants. Nothing new, just a long-winded rundown of what we should already know.
But a girl has got to have her principles.
On Saturday, Aug 21 I went to check-in. After receiving my key and filling out the customary paperwork, I was given a student handbook and told to sign it, acknowledging that I am responsible for all policies and regulations therein. I set the handbook back down and said, “I’m not signing this.” The poor RAs, just trying to do their jobs, were taken aback, looking rather confused. I explained that I would be back to sign it later, and left.
After that, I went home, read a friend’s handbook, and later that afternoon, went back to check-in, and signed for a copy of my own.
Of course, if I said I wanted to read it first, I would have been told to feel free to hang out there and read it, but you try to sit and read in a room full of students checking in, flustered over paperwork, bitching about being on the road all day, and panicking upon discovering holds on their accounts. It doesn’t work. More importantly, their offer wouldn’t have been sincere. Sure, I could have sat there and read the handbook, but they don’t actually expect anyone to do that. It is assumed we’ll just blindly put our signature wherever we’re told to. And the really sad part is that we do it.
Again, I knew the basics of what I would be agreeing to by signing that front page, but I couldn’t, in good conscience, imply that I approve of this process. An important rule to always remember is to never sign something you haven’t read and fully understood. And here we are, in college, the last step of preparation for the “real world,” and we are being urged to sign a mountain of papers that we haven’t read. I refuse to support that.
Would it be that difficult to send the handbooks home to us ahead of time? Or to give us the handbooks upon check-in, and set a deadline to hand back our signatures? What about making it part of the room registration process in the spring semester? I understand that in the big picture this is a miniscule problem, not even appearing on the radar, but it’s still an issue.
Do I really believe that it will make a difference to anyone that one person chose to postpone inking their signatures for a couple hours one afternoon? No, of course not. This isn’t about changing dumbass policies; I’ve given up on that. But like I said, a girl’s got to have her principles.