Woman Is Fatally Stabbed at Bowie State U.

September 15, 2011, 11:58 pm

A woman was found fatally stabbed Thursday night on the campus of Bowie State University, a Maryland institution east of Washington, D.C., according to news accounts. Fox 5 News reported that the victim was a student and that other students found her body in a hallway on the second floor of a residential building. Police officers asked students to leave the building while they investigated, and the university sent a series of text alerts about the stabbing and advising students where they could relocate, the station reported. The Washington Post reported that the suspect was the victim’s roommate, and that the two had argued, but it was not known what had prompted the dispute. The suspect, as yet unidentified, turned herself in to the police.

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willynilly

Has anyone noticed the uptick of college/university roommate violence, especially female on female? In this instance, information has not yet been released on the gender of the suspect. I am assuming it is a female until officially advised to the contrary. I further presume that statistics are being kept on these types of incidents and that soon some new stratigies will be emerging on how to more effectively address them.
josephmr

I vividly remember my freshman-year roommate. Our differences never pushed us anywhere near violence, so I’m in no way trying to say my experience was analogous to what transpired between these two young women at Bowie State. What I do wonder though, is whether these young women were having trouble getting along prior to the attack, and whether they had tried to resolve the matter through the university.

Without belaboring the point with a list of grievances (one of which, I will say, was of the “I’m not sure I’m safe around this guy” variety), the policy of the university I attended in the late 90s — communicated to freshmen through their RAs — was that when roommates don’t get along they need to “be adults” and work it out themselves. The assumption seemed to be that differences between roommates are always petty. But when you’re matching up several thousand kids based on nothing more than whether they’re smokers and their preference for a coed or single-sex dorm, there are going to be some pairs who are deeply, deeply incompatible. It is not helpful to create a culture in which students feel that approaching the housing department or an RA regarding conflicts with their roommates is a useless gesture liable to end with a stern admonition to grow up.

I hope this isn’t the case at Bowie – not that it’s going to make any difference for either of the young women now. But I know of at least one college where someone needs to wise up and realize that sometimes complaints about roommates are serious matters.
Socratease2

I think the stabbing provides a pretty good clue that the two were having problems prior to the attack, well, at a minimum the assailant had problems with the victim.
dale1

Dear josephmr: It’s clear to me that you have very little, if any background in housing and residence life. Your statements about RAs, their training, and the roommate matching process are so incorrect they are laughable to anyone with even a semester’s experience in the actual field.
josephmr

Would you care to enlighten us regarding the roommate matching process, or would you like to just leave it at the ad hominem? And btw, would you care to point out what I said about RA training, or criticisms I had about RAs themselves?