Last week’s editorial in The Panther appropriately expressed concerns for student behavior and safety, but wholly missed an opportunity to discuss a larger dynamic that is now present between Chapman University’s administration and its students.

The University has made an exceptionally successful effort to increase student enrollment. It is either unwilling or unable, however, to pragmatically deal with the increased salience of student life outside the classroom that accompanies a greater student population.

The administration’s reaction to student problems in Orange has been overwhelmingly punitive. Each semester, the student body learns about another regulation that was previously unthinkable – first, the administration permitted the on-campus institution of Public Safety to troll for off-campus parties and then punished students for off-campus behavior through the “3-strikes” policy.

Now students could face immediate social probation for behaving the same way that normal college-aged adults will all over the country in their spring celebrations. The University enthusiastically dictates new punishments without offering consistent, legitimate social programs or considering creative ideas that would decrease the desire for students to socialize in unsanctioned events off-campus. Consequently, good, decent students off-campus are increasingly punished for behaving like who they are – college kids with nowhere else to go.

I find it disingenuous for the University to increase enrollment while only offering social sanctions for the natural result of this increase. The administration needs to realize that it must either narrow Chapman’s scope or work seriously and fervently with students for dynamic ideas to allow students to socialize without unduly disrupting neighbors and endangering themselves. We will never be a major university if we perpetuate our growing reputation that student life and contentment comes last.

Currently, the administration-student relationship at Chapman is a one-way street. When students do have a chance to “interact” in the policy process, it is only to vent retroactively about decisions that have already been made and will not be changed. It’s enough to make anyone want to run through the streets in his underwear, screaming at the top of his lungs.