On February 8th I saw the sun rise. It had been a long time since I had seen the psychedelic mixture of blue, orange and purple splattered on the sky. I woke like a zombie and threw on a flannel shirt and corduroys, shoving trail mix down my throat for some quick sustenance. The time was around 6:45. Route 32 wasn’t buzzing like the petroleum stampede that I’m used to, and I hopped the concrete dividers to campus and made my way to Physical Plant. I had two hours of service to complete after being written up at the end of first semester, and February 8th was the last day I could complete it without receiving a harsher punishment. I trudged down to a part of campus that I assumed was the Williams School and met Jim Luce to be assigned a job.
I awkwardly stood while I waited to be approached by someone to accompany him or her on the morning rounds. Still droopy-eyed from the earliness and the lack of coffee, I prayed to the God of atheism that I wouldn’t have to do anything particularly backbreaking. I was eventually commandeered by a man named Craig and was informed that we would be picking up trash and checking receptacles on the east side of campus.
I rode with Craig in a pick-up truck around campus looking for any obvious waste as we got to know one another. Craig is a landscaper who hails from outside of Mystic, a big guy with a warm personality. As I scoured the campus for trash in the morning chill, I thought to myself about how much better this disciplinary action is compared to attending “Choices,” the wellness-mandated workshop that generally follows an alcohol transport, or getting lectured by an administrator about why it’s a bad idea to drink grain alcohol after only eating a bed of lettuce for dinner.
This service-oriented approach to disciplinary action is beneficial for two reasons. For one, you’re actually doing something to better the environment of Connecticut College rather than being cooped up in a room having statistics thrown at you. While educating students on the dangers and realities of alcohol consumption is definitely necessary, somehow instruments like “Choices” fail to constructively address the problem. Plus, more than half of the trash that I picked up was alcohol-related. Cleaning up after others may make you think twice before draining a fifth and smashing it on the ground or casually tossing a solo cup into a bush.
And two, it forces one to take a deeper look at how this campus remains so spiffy all of the time—how is it that the debauchery and damages of a weekend here are simply erased? We have a team of individuals who make sure that Conn remains as tidy as possible. Physical Plant, for my money, is truly the unsung hero of this college community. They clean the broken bottles, the crushed cans, the banana peels that were unsuccessfully “Kobe’d” and everything in between. If left to our own devices, this campus would look like a landfill in a week.
My two hours were over before I knew it. I had paid my debt to Conn for holding an open beer in a hallway and not complying with a Campus Safety officer in the process. Rather than feeling like a child and being talked down to about my supposed substance abuse issues, I was instead cleaning my campus and learning about the men and women who help keep this place beautiful. My perspective was broadened and I had given back. Isn’t this what punishment should always be for? A learning experience?
– Ethan Harfenist
Opinions Editor
