St John’s students will be “removed” by staff if they use their mobile phones during formal dinner, the College’s Senior Dean has declared.
An email sent on Monday morning followed complaints from “senior members and their guests” about junior members using their phones during dinner, and has prompted mixed reactions from students, with one complaining that the “tone” of the email “ties in with a lot of other issues about the general attitude towards undergraduates”.
Senior Dean William Whyte told students, “Following a number of complaints from senior members and their guests, the Senior dean has been asked to remind junior members that mobile telephones may not be used in hall during dinner for anything but calls of the utmost urgency. They must also be switched to silent mode.
“Telephones and other hand-held devices should likewise never be used for texting or playing games in hall. Staff have been instructed to remove anyone from dinner found to be repeatedly transgressing these rules.”
Responding to the email, St John’s student Ella Gough told Cherwell, “While I understand that it can be annoying or antisocial to have the person next to you texting at the table, as far as I know there is no specific college policy against it, and I think the tone of the email was heavy-handed. I also wonder why guests of senior staff have any say whatsoever in what members of the JCR and MCR of this college choose to do. They don’t even go here.”
St John’s students have also heavily debated the issue on their JCR Facebook page. Maham Faisal Khan explained that one of the main problems he had with the email was “the tone with which junior members are addressed”.
He went on to say, “I think that it ties in with a lot of other issues about the general attitude towards undergraduates.”
A first year lawyer also told Cherwell, “If the College is going to try and makes us live in the 18th century with gowns I guess it might as well go the whole way!”
Siding with the senior fellows, however, Ruth Maclean commented on the Facebook page, “The senior fellows can lay down whatever code of conduct they see fit I guess […] I don’t actually think it’s that unreasonable — it is actually really annoying the amount people use their phones in hall when it’s meant to be a social occasion — it’s just quite rude at the dinner table sometimes.”
Danny Waldman, one of three candidates for the College’s JCR president position, was also sympathetic with the Senior Dean, explaining, “people go to formal for the Oxford experience so it is fair enough, but it wouldn’t be reasonable if they introduced it for informal hall.”
Dominik Peters commented, “I don’t like how they haven’t given a reason for this policy — but as I know our buttery staff, this rule will never be enforced, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
The College did not reply to our request for comment, while the St John’s JCR President could not be reached.
