> When did we adopt the mentality that students first and foremost deserve "the college experience" and therefore can't be expected to follow safe guidelines?

> When did we adopt the mentality that students first and foremost deserve "the college experience" and therefore can't be expected to follow safe guidelines? There are a lot of things that can be expected in the sense of thinking that they ought to happen; but thinking that they will happen is another matter. Pretending that students, if sent lots of scolding e-mails and forced to sign pledges, will suddenly become models of social responsibility—in a way that, in many places, their 'adult' peers have not been able to do—is just a juvenile trick by college administrators to try to shift the burden of blame from themselves: parents forced them to open their campuses when it wasn't safe; students forced them to close their campuses by making it unsafe. Both of these statements are, in their ways, true, but intentionally lost in the mix is the fact that the one body that is sucking out huge quantities of money from students and parents is somehow managing to pretend that it bears no responsibility, and is just the helpless pawn of its customers (and I do use 'customers' advisedly, our university's administration having stated that student safety was a priority and faculty safety was not, since we don't pay tuition).