After an exhausting week of classes and the prospect of an exciting weekend ahead, many students look forward to spending time with friends and having fun on campus in whatever way possible.
Recently there have been complaints about the redundancy and infrequency of social events on campus. With the disappearance in the past two years of TNE’s and kegs, SAC has become responsible for the majority of social activities at Conn. While the new keg policy and consequent drop in number of hosted kegs has caused a great uproar among students, the disappearance of TNE’s was met with silent complaints among most students.
Current Thursday Night Events, or TNEs are activities instituted by SAC and the Office of Residential Education and Living to liven up the week in addition to regular Saturday night events.
Originally, Thursday night events were dorm-sponsored events designed to serve as fundraising opportunities for each residential house organized by housefellows and dorm leaders. Each house was responsible for hosting or co-hosting an event on Thursday night for the entire school to attend and these activities ranged from student-DJed dances, movie nights to board game competitions.
“The old TNE’s focused on students creating their own events. I liked attending TNE’s because they allowed everyone on campus to come together through student-run events,” said Rie Tai ’11.
Once noted as fun, offbeat, weekly activities on campus, TNEs currently seem to have gone under the radar of the active Connecticut College social hub as many Conn students cannot recall the last time they went to a TNE, and many might not even remember what a TNE was. But is this a result of badly planned events, a lack of funding or a misinterpretation of the definition of Thursday Night Events?
Scott McEver, Director of the Student Activities explained why TNE’s needed to be restructured and reinstituted. “For a period of years, TNE’s sort of lost some of their fundraising potential, because they weren’t necessarily large-scale events, but they were student-dances, and a DJ and people certainly weren’t going to pay a dollar for a dance they could go to for free the next night.”
He added that around four to five years ago, student-residential leaders began to utilize SAC Co-sponsorship for late night events to diversify the TNEs.”
Although this may have worked for a few years, the organization of Thursday Night Events as hosted by residential dorms was altered drastically when the college revised the structure the former Council of Residential Education, now the Office of Residential Living and Education. The reorganization of ResLife altered the responsibilities of housefellows and residential leaders, as well as the types of programming they were to organize.
Departmental money was no longer allocated to residential houses to host campus-fundraisers such as TNE’s so housefellows, along with their residential leaders, were directed to focus on creating house-specific programs and activities that would be hosted within their respective dorms.
Although TNE’s may have strayed from their earlier form and function, McEver stated that there indeed have been Thursday Night Events this year and there will be more events in the future. The Student Activities Office is attempting to diversify these events and revise their organization based on current campus situations.
Despite the rumors of the cancellation of TNE’s, most students do not recognize that the definition of TNE’s has expanded beyond the traditional weekly dance party, and are still hosted in some form or other on most Thursday nights. Last semester, McEver pointed out SAC produced film screenings of Up, Indie film screenings, small music performances and a karaoke night, among others.
Like many students on campus, Roger Kim ’11 expressed confusion and frustration with the new definition of TNEs, “The problem is that they don’t advertise the events as TNEs, so no one thinks of them as our old definition of a Thursday Night Event. I went to a few TNEs last semester but I didn’t think the activities were too exciting and they didn’t occur weekly.”
He added that he wished the Office organized more unique TNEs, as most events have been movie screenings or dances.
So what does this mean for the future of Thursday Night Events at Conn? McEver expressed hope for the continuation of TNE’s but pointedly advised students to share their opinions and requests to improve campus activities.
“If students think the name Thursday Night Events is critical and that there needs to be one every week, then we need to figure out how we can make that happen. Honestly, we don’t receive much direct or specific feedback on activities or events and we need input in order to create events students want.”
In general, students felt that TNE’s were exciting additions to weekly activities on campus although most felt that TNE’s were more enjoyable when residential houses hosted them.
“I think that TNE’s were more fun when they were hosted by the dorms, in the dorms. I remember having so much fun freshman year at our dorm’s crush party. I’d like to see more events that bring the campus community together like activities with fun themes like the ABC dance or a Twister game tournament,” said Tai.
Roger Kim ’ll added, “I think TNE’s have the potential to be great events that many students could enjoy, but dances get repetitive and boring after a while. I think there need to be more events in which students can interact and have fun with each other while doing something out of the ordinary during the week.”
While some students look for events that allow them to get out and meet other students, some students had other thoughts as they reflected on their TNE experiences.
Becky Sonick ’10 said, “Looking back, I think the amount of people attending TNEs hosted by dorms and TNEs hosted by SAC now probably hasn’t changed. I think that many people didn’t go to the TNEs hosted by dorms because they weren’t as great as the bigger events on campus like the Winter Formal or the Tent Dance. I did go to some TNE’s as an underclassman but now that I’m a senior, most of the activities don’t seem as interesting to me especially because I don’t really feel like I need to go to these events to meet new people.”
Zhong Huang ’10 expressed content with the way SAC is handling TNE’s but recalls the upsides to having dorms host the events.
“I think SAC is doing a good job trying to diversify the Thursday Night Events this year, but I think maybe when they were hosted by dorms there was more student attendance and more enthusiasm. I feel like having dorms hosting the TNE’s brought a more personable feeling to the activities and made students want to attend because they were supporting their dorm or just contributing to creating the events they wanted to see happen.”
