Residential Life has officially retired the yellow card. According to Area Coordinator Shawn Grygo, the policy violation process will essentially stay the same as in past years; the only difference will be the absence of the yellow card itself.

“When policy violations occur, the collegiate fellow will still write down violations,” Grygo said. “But it will put the responsibility in the hands of the area coordinators and the deans [to follow-up with the violation].”

The change in policy arrives with several other modifications of collegiate fellows’ responsibilities to help improve their relationship with residents. “They saw a lot of pot holes and worked really hard to change them over the summer,” Sophomore Communication Studies and first time Collegiate Fellow Pa Ngia Moua said. “They found that [giving out yellow cards] was an awkward situation for collegiate fellows.”

Several collegiate fellows expressed their approval of the change, citing the struggles they face when interacting with residents. “I think a lot of times when someone gets a yellow card they don’t realize that it’s not the final decision. The person making the decision is the area coordinator. The collegiate fellows are simply writing down what they think to be a policy violation and we send that report to the area coordinator,” Senior History Major Scott Doebler said.

“We’re hoping to take away the stigma that the collegiate fellow is making the call,” Grygo said.

Another reason for the policy change is due to the idolization of yellow cards that often occurred. Doebler said yellow cards have been treated like “trophies” or “rights of passage” in past years, with some residents actually taping them onto their dorm room doors and using them as bragging rights.

“We wanted to get away from students using [yellow cards] as a badge of honor, to a system of reflection on the incident,” Grygo said. “I think overall, we hope the change would be for students to understand the impact they have on their community and how it’s going to affect them in the future.”

Grygo expressed her hope that the change will help collegiate fellows connect to their residents. Moua also noted that area coordinators are emphasizing more one-on-one time between collegiate fellows and residents this year, which comes with the push to have collegiate fellows seen as community-builders rather than policemencollegiate fellows informed all residents of the policy changes at their opening meetings last Tuesday. Anyone with questions regarding the policy change should contact his or her collegiate fellow.