Things are starting to look up around here

For the last month, the "war" between the administration and the student body has gotten really n,11sty,especially here in the Perspectives section. But I am glad to say that peace will soon be returning to Cabrini.

Late last week, Laurie Keenan-McGarvey held meetings with the residents of Cabrini to hear the concerns of the students.

I was not at the meetings between her and the houses or the dorms, but I was at the meeting with the residents of the apartments_with my trusty tape recorder.

I give Keenan-McGarvey a lot of credit for having these meetings. It shows that she's trying to do something about the low morale on campus, as well as show everyone that she is a real person that you can talk to. 1bis was the first step in squelching the animosity between the administration and the students, and it was a very good first step. Of course, the meeting was not all nicey-nicey. The first portion of the meeting showed how absolutely livid the students were about the rule changes. At first, the only response that KeenanMcGarvey really had at this point in the meeting was that the school would refund the student's money if they wanted to leave which was not a viable option for the people at this meeting. Keenan-McGarvey admitted that she knew that people would not be happy about the new rules, but really underestimated how unhappy they would be. Chris Nielsen let her know how much she underestimated.

'There's a difference between not being able to please everybody and not being able to please anybody,"Nielsen said in what I like to call "The Sound Bite of the Night." "Nobody is pleased. This has totally pissed off the entire student body of this campus. Congratulations."

Kristen Williams had the best overall solution to the problems on campus caused by the new rules: "Start listening." I don't have enough room in this column to list all the other good points she made, but "start listening" was the main theme.

By the end of the discussion about visitation, the apartment residents and Keenan-McGarvey devised a more flexible solution of telling your RA or RD when someone is going to stay over. Co-ed friends could be stashed in a friend's apartment of the guest's sex. This officially began the healing process.

I focused primarily on visitation because it was the major issue discussed, but other issues were clarified, like the registering of parties and having more campus events.

A lot of solutions were brought up by the students, like John Del1'0sa's grandfather clause idea and having the apartment residents form their own residence agreement, considering the residents of the apartments did not sign one this year. It was a cleansing experience. Concerns were heard, solutions were discussed,· and the students were listened to. Everyone came out of the meeting