All the small things

The recent changes to winter housing policies—all Barnard students who wish to remain on campus for winter break must pay a $100 fee, and all Columbia students who wish to stay must register—are, in and of themselves, rather insubstantial. There are reasons for these changes: Keeping dorms open over winter break is expensive, and we understand this. Alone, this policy is not unreasonable. Neither is the fact that students who go to John Jay without their reusable take-out boxes must pay 50 cents to take out food. While the new requirement that all Barnard students must be on the meal plan to cover costs and the conversion of Ferris Booth into a dining hall to serve food more economically raised an on-campus ruckus, these decisions, too, cannot be called unreasonable. Our problem is not with any one of these isolated changes. Rather, it is with the addition of all of them—the constant reminders that we are ultimately customers—that we take issue.

Columbia Housing Services said the changes to its winter housing policy were a matter of security and cost, while Barnard Residential Life and Housing pointed out that many other schools charge for winter housing and that, besides, there are hotels in New York City.

The point—and this applies both to this particular policy and to the quiet accumulation of fees and requirements for student life—is that the dorms are not just another place to spend a night in New York City. They are supposed to be places that we can call home during our time as undergraduates. Columbia's price tag is high, yes, but it includes room and board, and thus we pay not only for our education, but also to feel that we are part of something. Except when we don’t, and there are added service fees. It is then that we are reminded that we are not only students and residents, but part of what at times resembles a corporation.

We appreciate that Columbia and Barnard need money to run. We understand that dining halls are costly and that half-full dorms in December and January are not always fiscally prudent. But the frequent reminders that we are expensive, that in order to get we must pay (and pay), that providing us services is inconvenient, all serve to disturb the environment that we as students are supposed to create for ourselves while we’re here. We can’t point to any one thing and say that it is this added fee that makes us feel this way. It is because of all these things together that the community we try to cultivate can feel more like a trading floor than a home away from home.