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[joey_fan]

Spork makes an interesting point; somehow

female trespasser = sympathetic/heroic
male trespasser = creepy/threatening

What I find interesting about this is the gender effect.  A male sleeping in offices, dorm lounges, and dorm bedrooms would attract suspicion.  Even a non-student boyfriend of a female dorm resident is closely scrutinized, if not by the RAs and other authority figures, by other female students in the dorm.  The presence of the non-student is noticed.  No one thought twice about the presence of these women.

[crazybatlady]

Spork makes an interesting point; somehow

female trespasser = sympathetic/heroic
male trespasser = creepy/threatening

What I find interesting about this is the gender effect.  A male sleeping in offices, dorm lounges, and dorm bedrooms would attract suspicion.  Even a non-student boyfriend of a female dorm resident is closely scrutinized, if not by the RAs and other authority figures, by other female students in the dorm.  The presence of the non-student is noticed.  No one thought twice about the presence of these women.

What do you mean, "somehow"? Is it really that mysterious?

cbl

[copper]

This reminds me of something that happened at an A-list private southern university several years ago.  In a 6-degrees-of-separation type thing a guy pretended to be part of a wealthy donor family.  They let him register without paying when he claimed various problems.  He almost made it to graduation apparently.  I don't know if it made the news; I heard this from someone who was a dean involved in cleaning up the mess.

[spork]

Spork makes an interesting point; somehow

female trespasser = sympathetic/heroic
male trespasser = creepy/threatening

What I find interesting about this is the gender effect.  A male sleeping in offices, dorm lounges, and dorm bedrooms would attract suspicion.  Even a non-student boyfriend of a female dorm resident is closely scrutinized, if not by the RAs and other authority figures, by other female students in the dorm.  The presence of the non-student is noticed.  No one thought twice about the presence of these women.

What do you mean, "somehow"? Is it really that mysterious?

cbl

He means "somehow Spork posted something without referring to lesbians."

[genespleen2]

This reminds me of something that happened at an A-list private southern university several years ago.  In a 6-degrees-of-separation type thing a guy pretended to be part of a wealthy donor family.  They let him register without paying when he claimed various problems.  He almost made it to graduation apparently.  I don't know if it made the news; I heard this from someone who was a dean involved in cleaning up the mess.

Interesting.  Share with us the name of the institution.

[drsyn]

Hmmm, Acrimone does seem to have give a little too much thought to the issue.

You know, I've noticed that a lot of people on these fora seem to think I'm really wordy.... I just don't get it.  A post like the one I wrote takes like... 2 minutes to write, maybe three if I go back and edit and try to think of better examples (I originally had another school instead of NYU). 

The "thought" about the issue of security and perimeters and transaction costs and the like just comes from the sort of conversations you have on a day to day basis if you're really involved in educational and school policy -- which I am.

I thought you worked at Walmart.

[kishter]

The Jennifer Weiner book In Her Shoes features a character who squats at Princeton.  She sleeps in the library and attends classes, and she makes friends with students who think she's also a student.  See http://www.jenniferweiner.com/about1.htm

When they made the book into a movie (starring Cameron Diaz), they took the squatter part out.  But in the book, she falls in love with poetry because she attends poetry classes as part of her ruse--and the professor has no idea she's not supposed to be in the class (one of the most pivotal scenes in the book is an interaction between the young girl and the professor in which the prof encourages her through a poetry explication). 

[oldadjunct]

The Jennifer Weiner book In Her Shoes features a character who squats at Princeton.  She sleeps in the library and attends classes, and she makes friends with students who think she's also a student.  See http://www.jenniferweiner.com/about1.htm

When they made the book into a movie (starring Cameron Diaz), they took the squatter part out.  But in the book, she falls in love with poetry because she attends poetry classes as part of her ruse--and the professor has no idea she's not supposed to be in the class (one of the most pivotal scenes in the book is an interaction between the young girl and the professor in which the prof encourages her through a poetry explication). 

True, Jennifer Weiner wrote a book titled In Her Shoes.  But it is a novel, a fiction. I have no doubt that certain Princeton faculty might be charmed by a Cameron Diaz character, but the likelihood of them not checking their rosters is pretty small.

There are many uses of fiction to enlighten our appreciation of the lived world.  But those uses begin with, and are based on, the first acknowledgment that the "book" is a fiction.

[kishter]

The Jennifer Weiner book In Her Shoes features a character who squats at Princeton.  She sleeps in the library and attends classes, and she makes friends with students who think she's also a student.  See http://www.jenniferweiner.com/about1.htm

When they made the book into a movie (starring Cameron Diaz), they took the squatter part out.  But in the book, she falls in love with poetry because she attends poetry classes as part of her ruse--and the professor has no idea she's not supposed to be in the class (one of the most pivotal scenes in the book is an interaction between the young girl and the professor in which the prof encourages her through a poetry explication). 

True, Jennifer Weiner wrote a book titled In Her Shoes.  But it is a novel, a fiction. I have no doubt that certain Princeton faculty might be charmed by a Cameron Diaz character, but the likelihood of them not checking their rosters is pretty small.

There are many uses of fiction to enlighten our appreciation of the lived world.  But those uses begin with, and are based on, the first acknowledgment that the "book" is a fiction.

What is your point?  Yes, the book is fiction.  No, the Stanford situation is not.  I wasn't trying to make the two equivalent.  Your post seems unnecessarily pedantic and peevish, not to mention that the uses of fiction extend far beyond "enlighten[ing] our appreciation of the lived world." 

Just saying. 

[oldadjunct]

Oh my goodness, do feel free to make you point about the relationship between the novel and the reality.

I made my point by simply mentioning that it is a novel.  I await your rationale for bringing it up.

[jonesey]

The "thought" about the issue of security and perimeters and transaction costs and the like just comes from the sort of conversations you have on a day to day basis if you're really involved in educational and school policy -- which I am.

Sure you are...

[farm_boy]

Good for her!  I think she should get a prize.

I've done short-term squatting in my time, but not a whole school year.  I admire her.

I found at least one university that would let the public use its pool for $1, as long as you showed some student ID from some university, expired or not. That's a cheap shower when you're camping/living in your car.

Also, I lived one semester on-campus in my pick-up (it was quite comfortable).  I showered at the gym every morning.  I felt fortunate, because when the street people snuck in for their shower I usually had soap and they didn't.

Also, for a couple of years I slept on my office floor to avoid a long-distance commute.

But, alas, squatting is getting harder.  For the past 3 years I've gone to a nearby university library to read the _Chronicle_.  Saturday I went to read it, and it wasn't on the shelf.  I asked the reference librarian, and it is now on-line only.  You must have a student ID or a subscription to read it.

Oh well.

[phantom_friend]

I grew up near a music conservatory that also held music lessons for kids in the area, and I was surprised at how easy it was to get in the dorms.  When I was in high school, I had my music lesson after I got out of basketball practice, and I would always shower in one of the dorms before my lesson.  No one ever asked me any questions.

[joey_fan]

Farm Boy and Phantom Friend have some interesting perspectives as former squatters themselves. And I would guess that a non-threatening looking young woman could very easily pass for a student and find her way around campus etc.

What I find so crazy about this is how the dorm staff seemed to have no idea what was going on. They never checked a roster or anything??

[donstefano]

I've always seen universities as public spaces. My alma mater was well integrated in the city, so university buildings were used as shortcuts through the city by locals, families came to the student restaurants (though they paid a bit more - but if you looked like a student, staff didn't bother to check). Some of the regulars included a couple of homeless - not many, just the same 3-4 who came in every day. They often got a free meal from someone, or one of them played guitar (badly), and you gave him something for it. Dorms were basically open, only your own door was locked - everyone could walk in and out, to visit friends, some abused it to sneak in and read the papers or watch TV. Only occassionally, we had to show people out: As long as it's small scale and they behave, no problem. And as faculty, I'm now actually delighted if people show up to hear my lectures without actually having been registered. We had some retired people who attended courses, just because they were interested. Not officially allowed, but if the specific professor for that course agreed, no problem.

All this is just 10 years ago....
During my first visit to an US campus, I was quite surprised to notice there was such a thing as campus police... (not to say: shocked) No wonder these universities have such a high overheads.
Now, the odd beggar or local fool would be marched off campus....

sad.