We have a new residence hall this semester. As such, the majority of students at NYUSH (with the exception of those who live in the Pusan dorms) are currently living in one of two residences: JinQiaoorJinYang; both of which are less than a 5-minute walk apart from each other. Given that the two residence halls are so close to one another, many students are making the 5-minute trek between the two. However, they run into issues when they arrive at the residence they are visiting, often being subjected to burdensome and bureaucratic paperwork. This reality has left many students dissatisfied with the dormitory policy.

Although the majority of students understand having to swipe their card to enter their residence hall, they feel they should also be able to easily use their card to enter other NYUSH residence halls. Students feel the access control system should block outsiders rather than students. This is no problem at JinQiao, where students have access to each other’s dorms despite the fact that Tower 2, Tower 3 and Tower 4 are all separate buildings. Personally, I feel this should be the case for access between JinYang and JinQiao. The current policy makes us feel separated, we should be a whole.

Given the fact that JinQiao and JinYang are very close to each other, the activities of students in different dorms are very frequent. The complicated registration system is extremely inconvenient for both the student and the dorm security department.

As already mentioned, the existing dorm pass policy has caused much student dissatisfaction. The issue has been discussed many times in theJinYang WeChatgroup. Considering that the open dorm access policy is related to the interests of students in multiple dorm areas, I initiated a vote in the Sophomore group chat for data collection. The picture below shows 128 participants in the poll; of those 128, 111 believe that the JinQiao and JinYang dorms should be easily accessible for all NYUSH students. This represents a plurality of students, more specifically 86.7%. There were still a few who hoped to maintain the existing access policy, but this was a small minority of those polled.

In order to reflect our appeal and get reasonable feedback, I emailed the student life department in an attempt to get an acceptable answer. Here is the response:

To summarize: Since Shanghai has implemented a strict accommodation management system, everyone is registered in the dormitory area by the school after allocating the dormitory. The relationship between Jinyang and Jinqiao is completely different than the relationship between Jinqiao's different towers. Jinqiao Tower 2, Tower 3 and Tower 4 are legally one residence. Jinqiao and Jinyang however, are two separate dormitories. Although they are only a 5-minute walk, JinQiao and JinYang might as well be as far away from each other as JinQiao and Pusan. In order to comply with the policies promulgated by Shanghai, NYUSH has therefore developed its own dormitory entry system. Therefore, the school system has a legal basis and will not be adjusted because of our wishes.

Given the legal reality, all we can do now is to account for the extra regulations and arrange our dormitory life within the prescribed rules. Although we have to leave other quarters before 11pm, we can still be whole. Because the AB always welcomes us.

This article was written by Boyu Wang. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Boyu Wang