06-04-2022, 01:12 PM
Not sure I agree with this description. As an RA for a frosh dorm, I was trained to look for signs and when to call the RDs to consider a 5150 - which was part of almost 3 weeks of RA training. Fortunately I never confronted that situation, but several friends who were RAs did, and several of their residents were temporarily involuntarily committed. If you don't know about it, that's for a reason - the entire thing is kept exceedingly on a need to know basis.
Obviously, Stanford is not perfect, but in my time at the university, I though it took these issues seriously, and it trained RAs to be friendly and authoritative, but not officious, and it kept us from having to play the role of the bad cop, precisely so our residents would keep their doors open and confide in us as much as possible. I'm not sure how things have changed since then, but as someone who saw the lengths the university went to, I did feel like the entire residential education system precisely as a failsafe to prevent worse case scenarios.
Obviously, Stanford is not perfect, but in my time at the university, I though it took these issues seriously, and it trained RAs to be friendly and authoritative, but not officious, and it kept us from having to play the role of the bad cop, precisely so our residents would keep their doors open and confide in us as much as possible. I'm not sure how things have changed since then, but as someone who saw the lengths the university went to, I did feel like the entire residential education system precisely as a failsafe to prevent worse case scenarios.