A message from the Dean of Students and the Assistant Vice President for Health and Well-being
Dear Hokie Families,
We are excited to welcome our new Hokies to their on-campus home for the coming year. VT’s Residential Well-being approach is unlike any other campus — a collaboration of key campus resources to create campus communities focused on belonging, engagement, and well-being. Yet, we can’t create healthy and safe communities unless students treat each other and our spaces with respect. We are introducing our students to these expectations as they arrive and we need your partnership to reinforce these messages with your student.
Students’ comfort and safety in our residence halls relies on respectful behavior as they live with each other. There are three important behaviors we want to draw your attention to:
- Trash. Students are expected to bring an appropriate trash receptacle for their room and regularly remove their own trash directly from their room to our external trash bins.
- Fire safety equipment. If students tamper with fire safety equipment like alarms, extinguishers, or exit signs, they place others in danger. Students who tamper with this equipment will face consequences like arrest and cancellation of their housing contract.
- Vandalism. When students vandalize their buildings and common areas, the physical consequences affect every student. It makes it impossible for our teams to complete their daily tasks of caring for our spaces when they are repairing and replacing items like ceiling tiles. The cost of common area damages will be shared amongst residents when the responsible party can not be identified, so students need to hold each other accountable for their behaviors and identify responsible parties to us directly or via our multiple anonymous reporting systems.
Your student is receiving this message from us now and again in their mandatory Residential Well-being orientations on their first nights on campus. Please join us in supporting our students in creating safe and pleasant living environments for themselves and each other.
Go Hokies!
Mark Sikes, Ph.D.
Dean of Students
Chris Wise
Assistant Vice President for Health and Well-being
