September 27, 2012
Campus Activities Board, fondly known as CAB, has put together some truly remarkable programming the first few weeks of the semester. Their student-run board hit the ground running: putting on concerts, indoor and outdoor movie nights, a comedy show as well as offering reduced-price tickets to off-campus events and co-sponsoring events with other campus organizations. They have effectively generated an impressive amount of buzz across campus with their string of success and new publicity, such as the series of QR-codes around campus, which function as clues as to figure out the surprise performers of the upcoming semester concert. The Spectator would like to commend CAB for accomplishing so much in such a short amount of time.
A recent event on campus, however, threatens to compromise the relationship between CAB and the student body. On the way to a CAB-sponsored event last Sunday night, an Avicii concert at the Turning Stone Casino and Resort, a student damaged the door of a bus that was transporting students to the concert. An article on page four, entitled “CAB pays the price...” details the misdemeanor.
Seeing an outside event that would interest a large group of students, CAB decided to facilitate Hamilton participation. CAB purchased a block of tickets to the concert and then resold them to students for $30, including transportation to and from the venue. The regular tickets were sold to CAB at retail value and did not include transportation. The cost of this transportation to and from the Turning Stone was already high for CAB and has now only been exacerbated by damage costs. Now, CAB is responsible for one drunken student’s destructive behavior.
While property destruction is not new to Hamilton’s campus, it is disturbing to see how little respect students have for one another. CAB is an organization that works hard to put together a wide array of programs for a diverse student audience. Taking money out of their budget to pay for one student’s property damage hardly seems fair.
This incident recalls the acts of vandalism from the past semester, ranging from the breaking of the sliding window in Opus 1 last spring to the slashing of the sukkah last fall. In response to these incidents, Hamilton has recently instituted a number of programs to eliminate students’ bad behavior while intoxicated. From the student-led “Stop Breaking Sh*t” poster campaign last year to the new StepUp! initiative, which encourages bystanders to intervene on behalf of their friends, there has been no lack of trying to curb the destructive behavior of students.
We, at The Spectator, hope that the door breaking was an isolated incident and not the continuation of a pattern of destruction on campus. Now, CAB must pay the price, which means that student programming as a whole may suffer. We hope that whoever committed the offense steps forward, so that the student body as a whole does not pay for one person’s mistake.