WUPD jurisdiction
Dear editorial board,
There are serious factual errors in your recent editorial entitled “Hey WUPD—We like your style.” I’d like to focus on just one. When a student leaves the Danforth Campus and chooses to live, visit or walk through a neighborhood in University City, Clayton or the City of St. Louis, the student is under the jurisdiction of the local community—not the University. The editorial implies that WUPD is responsible for the oversight of students who live in the community. The University’s police department cooperates and supports local police departments, but those departments are responsible for and have jurisdiction over public safety and law enforcement in their own communities.
Further, the University fully expects that University City, Clayton and the City of St. Louis police departments will enforce local, state and national ordinances regarding alcohol consumption, noise, trash and other nuisance violations. Once students leave campus, they are expected to behave as responsible members of a community. If they do not, they must live with the consequences of their actions, just as is done by other citizens in the community.
As the University’s community relations director, I take great pride in sharing the academic and community service achievements of our students. The volunteer service of our students is among the greatest assets Washington University provides to the community. The disrespectful attitude of a minority of students, as reflected by the regular noise, trash, public urination and other complaints we receive about student behavior, diminishes all Washington University students in the eyes of the whole community, including our neighboring municipalities. Editorials that choose to focus on protection of the students’ “social world” further reinforce the community’s perception of student entitlement and insensitivity to their roles as community members.
I am hopeful that in the future Student Life will be a responsible partner in educating Washington University students about their community responsibilities.
Cheryl Adelstein
Director of Community Relations and Local Government Affairs
Washington University in St. Louis
Wouldn’t it be better to build a new dormitory on North Campus, right next to the Metrolink, instead of a coal plant? The site is great for a dormitory but a very bad place for a coal plant, or coal research facility, or whatever the plan may be. The Metrolink can hardly carry coal. They will have to truck it in. This will not enhance the Delmar Loop. A dormitory would be good for business, a coal plant would not be so good.
The coal plant will be built somewhere, with or without WashU support, with Obama Administration support. The issue is not so much “not in my back yard” as “not on North Campus, a great place for a new dormitory, a bad place for a coal plant.”
I assume that the coal plant proposal was floated, last spring in a Student Life article, to invite public comment. Let’s have it. I don’t think this is a done deal.
Some students do not chose to live off campus but are forced because of a lack of Wash U housing.
A footnote to my brief comment above:
There is a powerful faction among WashU’s administration, staff, and faculty that is genuinely committed to community building, sustainability, and historic preservation, not just greenwash for a coal plant or redwash of a company town.
More power to them.
Hear Hear! Here Here!
Lecturer Dr. Jerome Bauer