“Say someone lived at Parkwoods and they walked outside on state-owned property, no harm no foul; but they’re [smoking] in the halls on campus, which is causing the problem.” To some this may be a surprising statement from the Associate Dean of Student Life, Allen Clay, Jr. Clay, who started in his role just this April, believes a new approach is needed when it comes to one of the major issues with housing at EMU: fire alarms. 

Upon arriving on campus this year, all the students living in residence halls were informed by their CAs that there would be some important changes when it comes to the housing policy. Those changes mainly come in tighter enforcement of the existing policies and guidelines surrounding the fire alarms and fire safety. For the past two years, it has not been uncommon to walk out of class and hear an alarm wailing in the distance, most often from one of the residence halls. Just in September of last year, students received multiple emails from EMU housing staff after multiple instances of fire alarms erroneously being set off. Clay hopes to change the trend, and he wants students to be informed about what the rules are, and what happens when you break them. 

Smoking marijuana is one major area he wants to clear up. “Smoking inside residence halls or on campus is generally illegal, because we’re a smoke-free campus,” he says, “[but] if people wanna smoke marajuana on state-owned property, that is allowed, because it’s decriminalized in the state of Virginia.” He emphasizes he doesn’t want to “tell someone ‘hey, don’t smoke,’” but he does want to make sure EMU’s policies are being followed to create a better living environment for everyone. 

Weed isn’t the only thing triggering the fire alarms, however. Clay also wants to enforce the rules when it comes to tampering with the alarms themselves. “When the fire marshal went in last year, [they] were seeing a bunch of rooms that had the bags over the fire alarms. That’s actually a class A misdemeanor in the state of Virginia.” Although students may think they can trick the smoke detectors, Clay says that covering them may be just as likely to set them off. He doesn’t want to be unfair, however. “People who do a first time offense get like a warning letter, have a conversation …  I understand a lot of people don’t know these things, so I don’t want to automatically get people in trouble,” he reassures. After the first offense, he says, is when further disciplinary action will be taken. It is also mentioned in EMU’s safety policies that tampering with fire equipment can result in a fine of up to one hundred dollars. 

Clay says that so far he believes less fire alarms have been unintentionally set off this year, something some of the CAs have noticed as well. Sophomore Bennett de Tenley, who is a CA in Maplewood, says he “feels like my floor has not had any issues with setting off smoke alarms.” He adds that he believes inviting students to smoke off campus rather than in the dorms has led to “fewer fire alarms in the freshman dorms than last year.” Senior Erin Batten from Parkwoods has some concerns, however. “I’m okay with [the changes], I do worry if people accidentally set [the fire alarm] off and then they think it was something and it really wasn’t and then they have to pay a big fine, which wouldn’t be fair.” It’s a situation most students don’t want to be in; it seems, however, that Clay is committed to working with students.

In that vein, he is also trying to provide students with more information on all the costs associated with any damages to residence halls: “I value transparency … My facilities and our department made this whole spreadsheet about how much it would cost if you lost a key or put a giant hole in the wall versus a rip.” The aforementioned spreadsheet was linked in the housing agreement all students must sign. He commits to “go around every room at the end of the year after … checkout to make sure the charges are fully accurate.” Normal wear and tear will not be charged according to him and that “we don’t intentionally try to charge people. I’m not out to get people for charges.” He wants students to know that “if you all work with us and communicate with us, we’re willing to make things work out.”