R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Right or Wrong?

The Facebook group starts off a little like this: “Dining services has budgeted $49,800 to replace dishes that disappear from its vicinities. For the fiscal year of 2007, $24,578.50 worth of dishes were found at the recycling center. Contrary to popular belief, these dishes usually do NOT go back into circulation because of how badly food is solidly encrusted to them.”

Molley Kaiyoorawongs ’09, the creator of the group, doesn’t take crap. As an RA in Kelly/Lang, she is standing up for her community by trying to create a movement of students who do something simple: respect one another. Molley takes the example of not returning dining hall dishes and extrapolates out to talk about respect on campus. But where are more students like her? Where are the students that when there is loud music playing, knock on the door and ask them to turn it down instead of just calling Public Safety? Where are the students that take responsibility for breaking something instead of just passing the charge on to an entire hall of people? These respectful people not only exist but are numerous. Then why the issue?

It turns out Molley hits a gigantic grey area. How can you be respectful one moment and disrespectful another? You don’t tell your friend to stop drinking but do take him to the health center when he blacks out. You leave your belongings all over the bathroom but say hi and smile at custodial staff in the morning. You care when juice is taken away in the dining hall but totally stole a whole thing of ice cream last week. We find a way to both channel our respectful inner Vermonter and still feel really entitled because we pay, yes, $50,000 to come to this school.

And Tim Spears wonders what “bottom-up decision making looks like on a campus like ours.” Well good question, Tim. Here’s what it looks like: there exists plenty of students who care passionately about their community but not passionately enough to convince others to start caring. When you have a paper, two tests, and a project due on Monday, respect goes out the window and entitlement walks in the front door. When you didn’t sleep for three days last week, you deserve to get amazingly drunk as you want Saturday night. Right or wrong?

The Student Life Philosophy group statement drafted and presented to the Community Council last spring goes something like this: “As a Middlebury College student you are here to advance learning and growth, especially your own.  You are expected to build community through practices of respect for self, others and place.  You are responsible for promoting habits of integrity and mutual accountability.  You are responsible for your choices and actions, and their consequences.”

MiddBlog wants to know: What is respect? What are we entitled to? What are we responsible for?