Opinion
How the administration ruined nightlife
By Julia Coash ’16
April 7, 2016
Tags opinion
There is a long list of things that have changed since my first year at Hamilton—the length of my hair, the levels of my classes, the place where I live—but most noticeably what has changed over these four years has been my nightlife. Yeah, some of that can be attributed to the typical development of a college student, where freshman year you go wild and by senior year you sit around in your sweatpants. I think that most seniors at Hamilton, however, would tell you about the policies that changed as well, and how a night now is different than four years ago even when we do bring back our fun and crazy first-year selves for a night.
The first thing to go was the jitney. What used to be a tiny van packed to twice its capacity with students of all ages carrying open Keystone Lights headed downtown a is now a long school bus holding just a handful of students. The switch to the bus was at first glorious. But all of a sudden you had to be 21 and pay a dollar to go anywhere. I am with the administration in that some students took advantage of the school giving us transportation, but big changes came with the new rules. We all choose different ways to cope with the changes. While some people drunk drive up and down the Hill, others walk through sun, rain, sleet and snow and still others do not even bother at all. Overall this makes the bars an unreliable social scene. Before, a night was incomplete without a stop at the Rok or the VT, but now there are so few people that it is not even worth trying. Underage drinking will happen no matter what, and Hamilton is such a small school that only seniors at a bar is not that great, nor is it profitable to the bar owners. The school should have considered how it is supporting the village, which relies on students, and left it up to us to decide whether we would risk breaking laws—especially since we are off-campus when doing it.
Next, pledging was moved from first-year spring to sophomore year fall. This is a policy change that I really do see both sides of. Though I am not involved in Greek life, I saw it affect my social dynamic as soon as I had settled into school. So when the administration changed the timing of pledging, I was all in. But the past couple of years, I have watched so many first-years get to Hamilton and be immediately bored with the social scene. Not only was there no bar for them to go to, but no quick way to meet upperclassmen either. Although only a small population of the student body ends up pledging, rush events were a great way to get invited to parties and meet older students. It gave us somewhere to go, and more importantly it strengthened the feeling of community on our campus. Now, if a first year does not do sports, there is really no way for them to get to know older students. I understand the intentions, but this policy is a bust and really does change the social scene in a negative way.
Building off of the last point, first years now live exclusively in substance free dorms, and, from my understanding, those rules are more strictly enforced than they were my first year. Whereas before there were no “all first-year” dorms, there are now multiple that are exclusively for first-years. This is another example of first-year segregation that has no real benefit.
Finally, the administration completely eliminated downtown housing. Not only does this presumably affect Clinton economics (who wants to rent a beer-stained, smelly house?) but it has also significantly impacted the nightlife. Before, even with the jitney cost and age limitation, students would still try to get downtown for house parties that later moved to the bars. The bars would still be a key part of the night and everyone sucked it up and dealt with the jitney rules. But now, it’s hard to justify a hike down the hill, without three quarters of the population allowed invites, to show up at a bar with a measely attendance for a night that is not guaranteed to be a success.
In my opinion, I am in sweatpants at home not because of personal changes, but because of campus policies decided by the administration. And if Hamilton wants to remain the special place that it is to me for others in the years to come, it needs to take a step back and consider every side of campus life that new policies are affecting. If the administration continues in this direction, Hamilton will be unrecognizable for a lot of people and unappealing to the rest.