THE WOLF
Wolf
The
Returns...
Marcy Hall’s Inner Demons: A Tale of Injustice and Incompentency in ResLife
O
n Wednesday March 7th, 2012 a beloved RA in Marcy Hall (Mountainview Community) was terminated. The firing of Francis “Frank” Cinque was the culmination of a quiet chain of events starting before the academic year began in August of 2011. Frank’s story is a tale of incompetence, inappropriate work behavior, deception, and hypocrisy that surrounds the Reslife hierarchy, the Resident Director (RD) of Marcy Hall, and the Assistant Director of the Mountainview Community. It’s no secret to Binghamton University students that ResLife isn’t exactly a well-liked institution of our campus. Many view the RAs in their building as the Gestapo patrolling the halls looking for trouble. But not too often do we think of the ones pulling the strings of the RAs, who we often forget are our fellow students. Everyone has a boss, and in a RAs case, it is his or her RD. ResLife’s Residential Hall Directors often pride themselves on being part of the family that they call their building staff. RAs are chosen and trained to be leaders in their building and community. They are to always maintain a professionally 18
BINGHAMTON REVIEW
respectable image and they are told and taught to lead by example. Anything that would compromise this image and leadership is often deemed termination worthy. Frank was considered by many residents and peers of Mountainview to be a model RA. When asked, residents of Marcy only ever responded with positive words saying that he was integral to making their home in Mountaiview a great place to live. Speaking on the case of anonymity, one of Frank’s old freshman residents said “he’s done more for me and this hall than anyone I thought could and has made me feel welcome and safe. He’s awesome.” One individual living in Mountainview said, “Marcy residents lost a personable, helpful, enjoyable RA in Frank. We lost a member of our family and an integral part the identity of the Marcy community. There’s no way Frank was fired for being a bad RA. He’s an amazing RA.” Frank Cinque was fired for what his superiors saw as exhibiting a “pattern of incompetency of completing administrative tasks.” It would appear that RD’s are not held to the same standards as the RAs that they are leading. Upon termination Frank was given a list of all of his wrong doings since
the onset of the academic year. The list includes very specific dates and times of all of his failures to complete administrative task such as failure to submit weekly reports on time. A weekly report is a way for an RD to get a feel for how their RA’s week has been going and how they can prepare for their one on one weekly meetings. On Tuesday, October 11th 2011, he was late to RA duty by 20 minutes. On November 21st 2011, he failed to respond to an e-mail scheduling a meeting for an end of semester evaluation. On February 12th 2011, he failed to submit another weekly report. And on Febuary 15th 2011, Frank was 10 minutes late to a staff meeting. Now Frank admits that he was wrong in committing these offenses. He was only available to make this comment, “Yes I understand what I did was wrong and I will take responsibility for my actions, however I did not believe that it was egregious enough to warrant me being removed, and if that is the case, then I believe Reslife needs to correct its inconsistencies. It should have a problem with knowing that there are others who have done much worse and continue to do worse without repercussions.” Tanyah Barnes, the RD of Marcy MAY 2012