During the fall semester, officials with SMU’s Residence Life and Student Housing office handed out fire safety violations to one out of every 10 students living on campus, according to records.
More than 200 students had to pay $250 each – five times the old fine – for a variety of offenses ranging from having a candle or halogen lamp to suspending decorations from the ceiling.
In addition, SMU officials charged students for infractions ranging from failure to move out by a certain time to damage to the residence hall. In some cases, students were fined who had not committed any vandalism.
“It seemed like every weekend there was a new problem they had to fix, none of which was my fault or anyone else I know,” Tim Balderston, a sophomore film major said of his residence in Boaz Hall last year. “They said we incurred record breaking damages in just the first semester.”
Balderston, who is living in Cockrell-McIntosh Hall this year, said there are already new charges posted including $60 to replace an elevator light cover.
“I’m on the first floor, so I don’t even use the elevator,” Balderston said. “I don’t think it’s fair that I should be charged for something that I didn’t even play a part in.”
Susan Austin, associate director of RLSH, defended the system of fines as necessary to protect and maintain the university. In fact, Austin said, increasing the fire safety fine five-fold appears to have had a positive effect on the number of people receiving the violations.
“Last year, our numbers were fairly high,” she said. “We were a little disappointed with how many and that they weren’t just high in the fall but that we had a lot of second offenses, or they were high in the spring and that’s when we said maybe we need to do something to get people’s attention.”
So officials increased the fire safety fine from $50 to $250 to make the punishment more severe and to make students more aware that Residence Life was working hard to bring down the number of violations. Students at SMU found guilty of a fire safety violation also must attend a fire safety class offered throughout the semester.
During the fall semester, 213 students received fire safety violations. This means that of the 2,000 students living in the residence halls, 10 percent received violations. Nine were overturned on appeal. Each of the remaining 204 paid at least $250 resulting in more than $50,000 in fines. Students who received more than one fire safety violation were required to pay $250 for the initial violation plus $50 for each additional one.
SMU previously used operating expenses to cover the costs of producing educational videos, printed materials and posters for fire safety purposes. Now, however, the money to pay these expenses comes from the fines paid by students for fire safety violations. The money also is used to make improvements such as the installation of smoke activated magnetic fire doors in some dorms and the addition of benches in areas where students can smoke.
“Whatever we do, it has some relation to fire safety,” Austin said.
Students can appeal a fire safety violation within five days of receiving it. Many are successful. There were 56 students who appealed last fall. Of these, nine – or almost one of every six- had the infraction overturned, records show.
Inspections for fire safety violations occur once every semester, as well as once during winter break.
Students can be charged for damages to their residence hall, to their rooms and even for late departure. Charges for damage to common areas of a residence hall are added up and then divided among the residents at the end of the term.
Austin said that making the smallest repairs could involve a multitude of people: the facilities managers, workers from the physical plant and people they might have to hire to fix things such as carpenters and contractors. She said that each time these repairs are made, it amounts to “lost opportunity” because workers are prevented from taking care of regular maintenance.
“If we didn’t have damage caused by someone we could be out doing something else,” Austin said. “Damage, we know, is going to happen, frankly, when dealing with students. But that’s an extra step into their job that means they’re not spending that time doing an improvement.”
The statistics for room damage charges were not available due to RLSH’s vacancy in the position of financial officer. Austin did mention, however, that there were more students who had absolutely no charges against them at the end of the year than those who did.
