Students face penalty for tree climbing penalized

Freshmen David Lemon and Alex Williams were climbing at a height of approximately 50 feet in a tree outside Blanton-Nason-Brewer Hall last Tuesday afternoon, when student adviser Tyler George confronted them and asked them to come down for safety precautions, Lemon said.

"When we got down he told us he had to get our names and banner ID numbers, and he said he would have to write us up to his hall supervisor," Williams said.  "We might or might not have to have a meeting with the hall supervisor, and if we have a meeting the worse that could happen is that we could get fined."

John Gardner, director of the office of Residence Life, said he didn't think there necessarily would be a fine issued to them, rather a possible discussion with the hall director.

Williams said George told them he wrote them up because the activity is against the school policy to damage University policy.  

It is against policy to execute "intentional or reckless damage to (a) University property or (b) property of another," according to the Student Conduct Code.  

Because trees are part of the Truman campus, they therefore are property of the University, but there is no specific article that prohibits tree climbing, said Lou Ann Gilchrist, Dean of Student Affairs.

"Climbing trees can damage the trees and create liability issues for the University, so it is definitely not a good idea for students to climb trees on University property," Gilchrist said.

No one has sued the school in the past due to someone being hurt while climbing trees, University lawyer Warren Wells said.  Gardner did not comment about whether students have been documented for climbing trees in the past, but said a documentation indicates staff has taken notice of the situation and felt the need to document it.

"Students fall off a tree on campus and they can sue the school, so I can understand why there would be a policy against tree climbing for insurance reasons," Williams said.  "At the same time, there shouldn't be a fine if we at least weren't warned first, because if we were warned, we would have easily complied.  It's just tree climbing. It's an innocent activity, so if they're concerned about our safety, maybe they can post signs that say ‘climb at your own risk' or something like that."

Disruptive conduct includes "failure to comply with oral or written instruction from duly authorized (a) University officials acting within the scope of their job duties or (b) law enforcement officers acting in performance of their duties," and might result in punishments such as a write-up, meeting or fine, according to the Student Conduct Code. Williams and Lemon were compliant with their verbal instructions.

"As long as there's a warning system first, there shouldn't be much of an issue," Williams said.  "That's the only problem I had with the situation is that we got written up right away just for doing an innocent activity without any type of warning."

Because it was their first offense, they should have received a verbal warning, according to the Student Conduct Code.  Because it isn't an action that explicitly is written in the document Lemon said it should be brought to the students' attention.

"It's just a simple activity that even the most inactive of kids do when they're young," Lemon said.  "It's just something fun that kids do, and I just love climbing, but obviously it's an issue that needs to be brought up, because obviously we got in trouble for it."

The outcome of Lemon and Williams' activity remains to be seen, but in the meantime, they said they do not plan to climb any more trees on campus.