Drink, baby, drink.
It used to be that Ohio University had a commitment to discouraging underage drinking by enacting strict penalties and making sure that people existed to enforce them.
Now it seems that student safety has failed to make the budget cut.
Last week, Ohio University's department of Residential Housing announced that the security aide program has been nixed to save an estimated $97,000 - or about the cost of one upper-level administrator. Security aides issue judiciary referrals and work with resident assistants when they are on patrol every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.
Eighteen students will lose their jobs, and more importantly, the pay that functions as financial aid. Fewer eyes will be on students during the critical hours when binge drinking is common. True, judicial referrals will probably plummet, which will give OU administrators something to trumpet, but it won't mean that students are behaving better. It only means that there are fewer people around to catch them.
Sure, it could be argued that this is the job of the RAs. But resident assistants, who must live with the students they turn in, are often hesitant to turn in their hall mates. Security aides, who might not live in the same building they patrol, can be the bad guys when a resident assistant wants to turn in a student without ruining the relationship with him or her.
Soon, that option will be gone. And 18 students who provided an important service to OU will have to look elsewhere for work as they lose their unofficial financial aid.
It's a shame that OU has such a hard time organizing its priorities.
4 Opinion
Student safety falls to wayside as administrators decrease budget
