Cooper Hall staff and Housing Director Earl Wright held a long meeting Thursday to discuss the newly enforced rules having to do with visitation and noise violations.

During the more than two-hour-long meeting, Wright said that, in years past, rules existed that were not enforced, and Cooper’s new hall director, Jim Colvin, has enforced them along with the help of his staff.

Some residents on the second floor in Cooper do not agree with the campus rule that states there is no visitation in the courtyard allowed after visitation hours. The controversy arose over whether the courtyard should be considered a common area or whether it should be considered part of the first and second floors.

For the past few years residents have stayed outside in the courtyard area and visited for hours on end. Now that Cooper staff have enforced the visitation rules, the residents are unable to congregate with members of the opposite sex in the courtyard anymore and this has caused complaints from a number of residents.

Residents also have complained not only about the rules being put into place, but about the staff members who have enforced them.

However, Wright said, “Jim and his staff have just put past rules into action. In years past the staff in Cooper have been more lax with the rules. No one is being targeted here; the staff are just trying to get their jobs done.”

Senior Patrick Green, a former resident of 2A, said, “Living here is not fun or homey anymore; people are getting fewer and fewer reasons to not live in the resident halls.” Green and his previous roommates are accustomed to sitting outside their suite on the patio and playing cards or just “hanging” out until the wee hours of the night with a few of their female friends.

Residents were not only unhappy about the newly enforced rules about visitation but were also ill at ease about the ongoing maintenance problems in the suites. One suite has had major condensation problems that have caused students to slip and fall. Housing staff said that the problems will continue to be referred back to the UTM Physical Plant until something is done about it.

Cooper staff and housing administration will be holding another meeting in about six weeks to follow up on issues discussed Thursday night.