With Thanksgiving Break just a few days away, many students are in a hurry to rush out the door and get their breaks started. But on-campus dorm rooms still need to be check-out ready. Unlike the first health and safety checks of the semester, there won't be any follow-up room checks, so if a violation, like string lights, alcohol or alcohol paraphernalia, or items hanging from the ceiling, is found, $25 fine per violation will be issued.
"I love the excuse 'I didn't know about it,'" said junior David Shibley, the Resident Assistant for the second floor of Danieley L. "Hard to believe. You’re in that space all the time you know what’s in there you know what’s not."
Elon sophomore Jen Peluso is a resident of Moffitt Hall in the Colonnades neighborhood, and a plant lover.
"I really wanted to have a lot of life in it," said Peluso. "Just to make it feel a little bit more homey and less dorm roomy, like you’re living in a prison."
But a plant hanging from her ceiling could cost her $25. In the beginning of the semester, Peluso's R.A. gave her a violation when she found a plant hanging from the ceiling "unsafely, with a choker." Peluso took it down for her second room check but put it right back up again afterwards.
"They just want you to be safe but they know that you’re gonna go right back to doing whatever it is you were doing that was unsafe," Peluso said. "What’s the point of even checking?"
With a reminder of her violation on her wall and every intention of putting the plant back up again when returning from Thanksgiving Break, Peluso doesn’t see a reasonable compromise.
"It's just unpractical to actually do room checks maybe a way that they'd be more effective," Peluso said. "Going in every day or once a week because no one has time for that."
While Shibley acknowledged that he's aware of residents ignoring violation notices, he said there's nothing he can do about it.
"We don’t wanna be invasive of anyone’s space so...I don’t know my job is to build a community I’m not really here to be a police man or...definitely a policy enforcer when I need to be."
Students are allowed to stay on campus through Sunday instead of Saturday this year for the first time. The purpose of that is to give students the opportunity to see Elon football take on conference rival James Madison University on Rhodes Stadium on Saturday at noon.