Uni gets tough on campus mischief
The University of Crete decided yesterday to hire extra security guards to protect its premises over the holidays after repeated thefts and drug dealing on campus. Yesterday’s decision follows another last week by the rectors’ council to stop teaching at the university each time students interrupt a meeting of the school’s senate. Crete University is fast becoming a testing ground for tougher rules aimed at stamping out lawlessness and student misbehavior. In August, the rectors took the unusual step of lifting the immunity that prevents police from entering campuses to tackle illegal activity, without express permission from university authorities. The same measures are set to be in place during the upcoming holidays. A meeting of the senate was again disrupted yesterday by a small group of students who were protesting the decision to suspend teaching at the institution. University Rector Yiannis Pallikaris appears to have had enough of this disruption. «The university cannot operate spasmodically… while we carry on as if nothing has happened,» he said in a letter to students and lecturers. «We cannot have students becoming passive smokers of banned substances in lecture theaters… office and laboratory equipment going missing every second of the day… and then turn around and say that there is teaching and education taking place.»
