Late nights not allowed

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Providence College has always frowned upon late-night consorting between men and women. And though it's never had dorm police checking door to door, it has always punished violators who got caught.\nStill, it came as a bit of a shock to students when, this fall, PC really put teeth into its "parietal" policy.\nUntil last spring, students caught with a visitor of the opposite sex after 1 a.m. were fined $25 for the first offense, $50 for the second, and $75 for the third -- along with other sanctions for serious violators.\nThis year, first offenders are fined $100 -- and that's only if they're caught before 2 a.m.; after that, students must report to the dean of discipline and face possible disciplinary probation.\nThe penalty for a second offense is now $250, plus two semesters of disciplinary probation. Get caught a third time, and you're out, suspended for a minimum of one semester.\n"It's so harsh," said junior Andrea Essner, vice president of PC's Student Congress. "It's really harsh."\nThe Rev. Kenneth Sicard, O.P., executive director of residence life, said the college increased the penalties as part of a routine revision of its policies, not because "anything dreadful" had happened.\n"We just felt it was more consistent with our mission to do it that way," Sicard said. "The policies have always been pretty strict. We think they're reasonable, and they're certainly consistent with what other colleges are doing. ... We've always tried to be very consistent with what the church is teaching."\nSicard noted that students can still mingle in dorm lounges and in apartments' common areas.\n"I haven't gotten a lot of complaints from the kids," Sicard said. "And one thing you should recognize is that most of the students choose to remain in the residence halls; we've got tremendous overcrowding.\n"The kind of student who comes to PC comes because they're looking for a school like PC," he added. "Catholic values mean a lot to us, and I think they mean a lot to the students. I don't think they feel oppressed by us."\nIn fact, Providence College students are not publicly complaining about the new penalties. There have been no angry letters to The Cowl, the student paper. No pickets. The Student Congress has not taken up the issue.\n"The truth is, no one's saying anything," Essner said.\nBut don't mistake the silence for agreement, Essner and others said. It's resignation.\nPrivately, "people definitely sounded off," said Patrick Doherty, a sophomore. "But it's like they had the power of God against them."\nJunior Meredith Lynch said the issue has come up at the Student Congress, "but it was like, `Nope, let's move on to the next topic. Let's not even waste our breath on this subject.' "\nStudents also know better than to challenge PC's moral code, Lynch said. "I think if you had a true protest, you'd be risking the rest of your year."\nParietal rules -- an old-fashioned term that refers to what happens between walls -- are fairly common at Catholic colleges, as Father Sicard said.\nA check of a half-dozen schools in the Northeast turned up only one, Georgetown University, that didn't restrict opposite-sex visitors in the dorms.\nAt Loyola College in Maryland guests must be out by midnight Sunday through Thursday nights, and 2 a.m. on weekends, though there are no fines.\nBoston College doesn't set specific curfews, but it requires registration of overnight guests, and forbids premarital sex as "conduct unbecoming" its students.\nSimilarly, Stonehill College in Easton, Mass., does not have designated visitation hours, but its residence hall rules say it "in no way condones guests of the opposite sex sleeping the night in a student's room."\nRhode Island's only other Catholic college, Salve Regina University, run by the Sisters of Mercy, has the same visitation hours as Loyola College. But at the Newport, R.I., school, fines are attached.\nFirst offenders pay $50, and second offenders, $100. A third offense is punished by a $150 fine, residence-hall probation, and the involvement of the dean of students.\nIn Salve's dorms, all visitors must sign in and identify their host. When resident assistants make their last rounds -- at midnight Sunday through Wednesday, 1 a.m. on Thursdays, and 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays -- they check the visitor log, see who hasn't signed out, and knock on the hosts' doors to warn them, said Dennis DelGizzo, director of residential life.\n"We don't want to document anybody for a policy violation if we don't have to," he said.\nStill, as many as four students can get written up on a busy week, DelGizzo said. Ninety-five percent of the violators aren't having sex, he said, but just visiting too late.