September 27, 2012
In the latest case of property damage at Hamilton College, the door of a hired bus was broken in the process of shuttling students to Sunday night’s Avicii concert at Turning Stone Casino.
In response to student interest in the concert, the Campus Activities Board (CAB) decided to provide tickets and transportation to the off-campus event. CAB purchased and sold a block of 150 discounted tickets to the student body at large, while providing shuttle service to all students, regardless of whether or not they purchased their the tickets through CAB.
On the night of the performance, students came out in droves to ride the CAB-sponsored buses to the popular Swedish DJ’s performance, crowding KJ circle before the initial pick-up time of 7 p.m.
The process of loading and unloading students was complicated by the large volume of students competing for seats on the bus.
“When students saw the bus coming toward KJ circle, they charged the bus to secure a seat. Because of this, damage was done to the door of the bus,” explained Noelle Niznik, Assistant Director of Student Activities.
According to Lily Rothman ’13, the CAB Concerts Coordinator, the incident involved “one student literally jumping and grabbing/hanging off of the bus door while attempting to enter the bus, which completely broke the door.”
The damage sustained caused the bus to be recalled from the shuttle route due to the danger of transporting passengers with a broken door. CAB Executive Board members who were present at the time of the incident were instructed to evacuate the bus after the company determined further transportation to be unsafe.
At this point in time, the individual responsible for the damage has not come forward. As a result, CAB has been left responsible for footing the bill.
“It will unfortunately have to be paid for out of CAB’s budget, which could result in less programming for the campus,” said Niznik.
The incident serves as an echo of the vandalism and property damage linked to intoxication that plagued the Hamilton campus last spring. “It is just an extension of drunk people behaving badly,” said concert-goer Doug Santoro’14. “It’s just like what happened in the past: the Opus window, dorms.”
Campus outcry over last semester’s acts of vandalism led to discussion between students and administrators in an effort to identify and solve the problem causing destructive behaviors. Alcohol was determined to be a large factor in the damage to campus property.
Addressing these behaviors, Dean of Students Nancy Thompson announced at the beginning of this semester a lift on the hard-alcohol ban, a step many believed would allow the administration to better focus on punishing dangerous, destructive and disruptive behavior, instead of pushing alcohol consumption further underground. But the bus incident has left some students and administrators questioning the character of Hamilton students.
“I am extremely disappointed that Hamilton students would act so carelessly,” said Niznik.
Anyone with information regarding the incident is encouraged to contact nniznik@hamilton.edu.