Community Standards

Community Living Standards are guidelines by which all members of that community agree to live. These are general community standards in Residence, which have been designed to support the following principles and values of the Residence.

The Residence Life Team and all Residence staff is dedicated to the advancement of learning and the dissemination of knowledge; the intellectual, social, moral and physical development of its members; and the betterment of society. These overall goals commit us to three central values in our communities:

1. The development of all members of the Residence community, which implies and affirms the dignity, worth and autonomy of the individual.
2. A focus on learning and knowledge, which upholds the fundamental importance of reasoned debate and inquiry in all of this Residence's service.
3. Societal enhancement, which extends the commitment to individual development beyond the walls of the college to the ideal service to the broader community.

What do we have in place to support community standards?

All staff that work in Residence have as their primary goal to create a living/learning environment which fully supports the principles and values mentioned earlier. On-duty is one way that we try to ensure that all members of our community have access to help at any time they need it. On-duty is not designed to be a patrol for people doing things wrong, but rather as a resource for people to use should they not be able to handle a situation themselves, or if they just need someone to talk to!

Enforcement of residence rules, however, is a reality and is one way that we can ensure that community standards are maintained. It is important to recognize that any member of the community can challenge any other member of the community if they are acting in contradiction to the community standards. Enforcement of the rules by staff is an action that often speaks for those who are not comfortable speaking for themselves.

Each individual must have an investment into the maintenance of his or her own community.

Every member of a community is collectively responsible for the success of that community – they are also responsible for realizing that their personal definition of success may not be the same as someone else's. An agreement by all members of the community to abide by community standards allows for a common ground to exist, and it also allows individuals to challenge each other about the appropriateness of their behaviour.

Respect for each other and the community

A successful community is one where there is mutual respect for each other and the community as a whole. Respect for each other includes the realization that while one may wish to be loud until 3:00 a.m., there are other members of their community who would like to sleep, and then coming to the conclusion that they should choose not to be noisy so as not to disturb theme, rather than only quieting down if they get “caught” by a staff member.