Progress

When I was in college, one Saturday morning, I got up early because my roommate and I had a fun outing planned. She was in the study room doing her morning meditation and I jumped in the shower. When I cut off the shower, I found that my roommate had pulled the classic prank of grabbing my towel and clothes. We did this frequently to each other in my dorm . . . and the expected response was to take down the shower curtain and while clutching it around ourselves, smile for the camera.

Only, when I left the bathroom, there was no flash bulb . . . and someone said "good, you're done, I can clean the bathrooms now."

When I got back to our room and got dressed, and dashed to the study room . . . my roommate said that she was wondering why there was a boy in the study room outside "visiting hours." Then, when we compared the person we'd encountered we figured out that the boy in the study room was the same person in the bathroom. And, Hey! the cleaning crew is female and doesn't come in on Saturdays.

We ran, and woke up the RA and reported what had happened. We found the boy in the lobby . . . where visitors were allowed to be during non-visiting hours. . . but he was reading mail. Campus police were called . . . and my clothes and towel were found in the basement behind our mail center.

Later, we learned he was a 16 year old run away who was "living with" a girl in our dorm who thought he was a student. And, he'd been banned from several other dorms for peeping.

The police arrested him, but they never got a statement from me. They never spoke to me. Learning what happened to him was gossip that was passed along, not give to us "officially."

Last night, we had a college student in the ER . . . her dorm supervisor came with her to the ER along with several supportive friends. The Dorm supervisor called the police for her, called the person in charge of student affairs, and made arrangements to make sure the student had a safe place to stay over night. She also arranged to take the student to the police dept. today to finish making her statement.

I was so pleased to see the great improvement in how colleges respond to victims. There are still plenty of horror stories . . . but this time, they got it right.