Editorial; April 9, 2012

On a recent weekend, a group of Conn students went to the Tiki bar at the Bulkeley House restaurant on Bank Street in New London. While the details of that night are murky, how it ended is not in question: a student was threatened with a knife by someone at the bar who was not a Conn student, and the police had to resolve the situation.

The students who were involved with the incident were left startled by the possibility of violence on a night out. From our perspective here at the Voice, what happened raises im- portant questions about the current state of our social and drinking culture. What does this mean? Are we losing the sense of community that used to be somewhat prevalent amongst the campus community during our freshman and even sophomore year?

There is not necessarily a connection between the specificities of the bar incident and the shifting social environment at our school, but it raises the issue of the recent drive to get off campus in order to have fun on weekends. It seems that more and more students are driving or taking cabs into New London to go to bars downtown and elsewhere.

From our recollection, it seems that the eagerness to go to bars is stronger now than it was during our earlier years here. When we were underclassmen, we met many of our older friends at parties on campus, and we bonded with our own class by spending time with them in the places we lived, both during the week and on the weekend. It seems that the time for these interactions is no more. What is driving this change? Why are students now seemingly unsatisfied with the social scene on campus?

Perhaps because the social arrangements on campus are changing for the worse. Campus Safety has cracked down on floor parties and large gatherings across campus. Thursday has ceased to be a significant partying night. Traffic at the Cro Bar has increased. The Office of Residential Education and Living has lectured Abbey House residents about their sullied “reputation,” while they have chided those who live in the Ridge apartments, a traditional site for large-scale partying, for hosting big gatherings.

In such an environment, no wonder that we are increasingly looking elsewhere for fun.

We are not saying that there is anything wrong with partying at New London bars. We have done so, and enjoyed it. But it should not become our only weekend option: we came to Conn for the vaunted closeness of its campus community, for the sense of home that it engenders. In other words, we didn’t come to Conn for the New London social life. We think the college is in danger of eroding the sense of space that has made it great.

Whatever tightening of our social life that various parts of the college’s leadership is trying to implement should be liberalized. That is in everyone’s interests—we would enjoy campus life more; there would be fewer opportunities for challenging incidents such as what happened at the Tiki bar; and we would be a happier population. Furthermore, we predict that a less colorful campus social scene will mean lower matriculation for new and incoming classes at the college who are expecting to inherit an earlier model of campus living.

Avoiding that possibility is in the administration’s interests.

Already, those living on campus, including us, feel a sense of alienation where before we felt a sense of community. That shouldn’t be. Both the students and the administration should work to make campus life more amenable to gathering and partying. If we strike a positive balance, students will be happier and will leave less frequently, engendering the strong sense of community that Connecticut College once had.