Suit Against Clark Misguided, Not Surprising

A lawsuit filed against Clark on Friday (article) claims that Clark administrators did not keep a close enough eye on its students, allowing Michele Bash to develop a drug problem which progressed and led to her death from a heroin overdose.

The blame that this student's parents are putting on the administration is certainly misguided, but considering the coddling and spoon-feeding that happens on this campus, it should not be unexpected.

At the center of the lawsuit is the relationship between Clark and its students. Should Clark play the role of custodian, present to look after its students and walk them through each decision they make? Should parents expect the dean to keep tabs on each student, and provide parents with regular updates of their children's activities?

Such a proposition is not only impracticable, but insulting to a group of students who should be mature enough to live on their own. More than anything else at issue is personal responsibility. The question raised by the lawsuit is this: Should an 18-year-old reasonably expect such close supervision? The answer has to be no.

Clark's objection to the lawsuit seems to indicate that they are aware of such limits. But even as things stand now, Clark plays too large a role in its students' lives. For starters, they need to rethink their mandate requiring students to live on campus for their first two years.

The problem is not that administrators do not pay enough attention to students - it is that they pay too much attention. Students and their parents are wooed into a sense of security that they neither possess nor need.

The university should provide resources for students who need them, and they should advertise those resources and make students feel welcome to use them. This includes counseling, health services and general guidance, be it social or academic.

The university is right to emphasize community on campus. But the encouragement of community should be the extent to which administrators interfere in the lives of students.

The overprotection of students provided at Clark does more harm than good. It delays maturation into adulthood, favoring a coddling that hinders students' progress toward independence. And it provides a safety blanket that, upon graduation, students will be shocked to be without.

Michele Bash's death was tragic. But trying to transfer blame onto the university is imprudent. Bash was an adult who made bad decisions with fatal consequences. Her parents should stop laying blame on the university, and use their efforts toward more productive means, such as drug awareness and prevention programs on college campuses across the country.

~RYAN KELLY, Executive Editor, The Scarlet