Caroline Winslow
Junior Editor
In August, Sewanee Residential Life brought about changes to the known proctoring policies. Hannah Latimer (C ’23) says that in the 2021-2022 school year, and in previous years, there were dorm neighborhoods such as the Johnson, Hoffman, and St. Luke’s neighborhood, but as of the 2022-2023 school year Sewanee will no longer have these neighborhoods. Dorm neighborhoods are groups of closely located dorms that do activities together, share proctors, and share area coordinators.
Due to the lack of neighborhoods, the proctor on-duty shift has also changed. In previous years, there was one proctor on duty for each neighborhood every night, but now each night there is only one proctor on duty for the entire campus. Their shifts are Monday through Friday 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. and Saturday through Sunday 8 a.m. to 8 a.m the next day.
According to Casey Kreger, the new director of residential life, talk had already been floating around the residential life staff before he came and enacted the new policies. The new policies came about due to the lack of convenience, safety, and equitability that the old policies provided. Kreger, says that despite the safe nature of the campus, having the personal cell phone numbers of proctors available on the doors of buildings was a safety hazard; the paper clips to show who was on duty caused convenience issues because they were often lost. He says that one of the largest reasons for the change was the equitability, “We realized it wasn’t as equitable between the different neighborhoods on campus where proctors work because this neighborhood might have eleven [proctors], this one may have five, and this one may have four. The frequency of being on call was different and so we were asking for people to do more work for the same amount of pay and same amount of benefits and that wasn’t equitable.”
Ryan Xavier (C’25), a first-year proctor, says, “I initially was very anxious about holding the responsibility of taking the proctor role for the whole campus for a few nights per semester, but after having been on duty, the work volume was lower than I personally expected.” Additionally, if an issue were to arise where there are multiple calls that need to be addressed quickly, then there is also an on-duty area coordinator that the on-duty proctor can call for help.
Other changes in proctor policies are the addition of new gadgets for the on-duty proctor to use. One of these is the proctor on-duty cell phone; whichever proctor is on duty for the night has the phone that students can call, this way they no longer must use personal cell phone numbers. The other new gadget is the low-speed proctor vehicle. The proctor on-duty now has access to a low-speed Sewanee Police Department vehicle in order to make it all around campus in a timely fashion. According to Kreger, the vehicle also allows for the proctors to not have to use their own gas, takes care of liability issues, and gives them the resources to do the job they were asked to do.
The proctors will have to adjust to this change along with the rest of the campus. Hannah Latimer (C ’23), one of the three head proctors assures that “the proctors are really great and trained really well and are able to adapt to a lot of things.” “I do feel well trained to take care of the whole campus as I would for our previous neighborhoods,” says Xavier.
On-duty proctors are there as a resource for students with time-sensitive issues such as room lock outs and animal intrusion. However, each dorm has both lead proctors and other proctors who can help handle less emergent situations such as initial roommate disagreements and finding different school resources.
In case of time-sensitive needs be sure to call the proctor on-duty phone at (931) 636-3271.