The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2 - 44

Burns B . Crookston

fully recounted in recent literature. Zealous and confident in their ability to set goals, make rules, and determine the substance and form of their governance, students were quick to discover they were ill-equipped to accomplish the task. Chaos often ensued, accompanied in many instances by flight into anarchy, the very patter of city or suburban existence from which the students had hoped to escape: compartmentalism, privatism, anonymity dominated the environment of the residence halls. The individual was thus left to fend for self, to find friends, leaving to outside authorities the responsibility for running the place and keeping the peace. The “participatory democracy” often became little more than a haven for those seeking security in the anonymity of the crowd, willingly abdicating their power to the manipulation of demagogues. Stripped of their traditional authority, staff often found themselves as impotent outsiders, lacking the skills for effective entry and influence.

are given opportunities to play with being a “democratic” group, but usually within sight or sound, and always with full group awareness of the omnipresence of a teacher, parents, scoutmaster, staff member, or other authority figure who can, and often does, intervene, assist, bail-out, or contravene, and always with an understood ultimate power to affect the direction or outcome of the group. This brand

Based upon the life experience of most college students is there any reason to suggest any outcome save failure? Have they, for instance, as urban apartment dwellers or suburbanites ever participated in a collective decision-making experience? Have they ever participated in the processes of creating a new community?

A Paradox of American Democracy
Based upon the life experience of most college students is there any reason to suggest any outcome save failure? Have they, for instance, as urban apartment dwellers or suburbanites ever participated in a collective decision-making experience? Have they ever participated in the processes of creating a new community? Have they ever learned to care about and take responsibility for others in their own neighborhood? Rarely, if ever. Paradoxically, while functioning as a political democracy, our day-to-day lives are organized and function under a system of beliefs and principles that are authoritarian, not democratic in character. To be sure, from school and group experiences to conventionally operated residence halls developing youth
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of democracy becomes expressed through decisions made by the group but always subject to the veto that cannot be overridden of an authority figure. In college residence halls what often has been passed off as an experiment in democratic living in actuality has been a bureaucracy where the power and decisionmaking authority is delegated through staff, with the functions of student “government” limited primarily to making recommendations and running student programs and activities.

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITy STUDENT HOUSING

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 36, No. 2

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