Calling the policy unreasonable, University President Jehuda Reinharz told The Hoot that he is looking into changing a Residence Life policy requiring students to register parties seven to ten days in advance of holding them.

Reinharz said that until a meeting with Union President Jenny Feinberg 07 earlier in the week he was not aware that students need to register parties ten days in advance.

I said to her, I have some sympathy for that fact, Reinharz said. I didnt know that students have to actually apply ten days in advance to have a party and Ive taken the issue up immediately with [Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment] Jean Eddy and went to talk to her about that.

Feinberg told The Hoot that in their meeting, she explained to Reinharz that students tend to have, very wonderful weeks and very mediocre weekends, because of some strict rules imposed on student social life.
I think that really resonated with him because he understood there are very active clubs and very strong academics and students are very happy [during the week] yet when it comes to the weekend they find that they are somewhat disappointed, she said. We [student government] think its our responsibility as students and student leaders to do something about it.

Students need to have the opportunity to express their interest in throwing a party to Residence Life, and seven to ten days is a long time, she said.

I said, why does it have to be ten days? It seems that its a very long period of time and even though I know that the police and others have to be prepared, ten days seems unreasonable to me, Reinharz said.
Feinberg explained that she is trying to branch relationships between the departments of Public Safety, Student Activities, and Residence Life and the Student Union and Student Events so that all the organizations can have a greater understanding of what it means to be social and safe on campus.
Feinberg said that she told Reinharz that there is a vicious cycle going on between students and the department of Residence Life.

Students are afraid that their parties are going to get broken up, so what they do is they are either not throwing parties or when they do, they arent reporting them to Residence Life, she said. And so on the latter side, when they arent reporting them to Residence Life, they are also not telling students that live around them that they are having a party, so often times a complaint will come in from other students who feel like they want to sleep and they didnt know that there is a party going on.

She explained that this is causing the vicious cycle because Public Safety has no choice but to come and break up the parties when noise complaints are registered by students.

So [it might be better] if we had a better policy in place where students were informing other students they are having a party or informing other students ahead of time but perhaps not necessarily seven to ten days ahead of time, she said.

Feinberg said that having enough opportunity to inform Residence Life and living on a trust factor would cause more students to have parties.

Having more parties means each party would not be as crowded and it gives people more options and more things to do, she said.

We are going to examine the policy because I want students to also have some spontaneity so we have to weigh spontaneity versus safety and all the rest and I am sure well arrive at some equilibrium that makes sense, Reinahrz said.