Where, Oh Where Have All The Kegs Gone?

Remember the good old days of kegs? Well as a senior, I most certainly do. Living in Windham basement my freshman year I couldn’t tell you just how many kegs frequented the common room, but my memories from them are endless.

These were jovial get-togethers where mirth and joy could be had by all, 21 years of age or not. They were a place to be social, drink without excess and bond with members of your community, sports team, club or classmates. The wonderful thing about kegs was that the party was contained to one room – a large open common room to be precise – so that it did not disturb the entire house nor did it damage the entire house. In addition, with so many people and limited alcohol, binge drinking was nearly impossible.

Jump forward three years and the college, in my opinion, is faced with a completely different drinking culture and a major issue of limited social spaces. Over the past two years I have seen an overwhelming number of transportations and floor parties that have been getting completely out of hand.

These floor parties seem to be the most destructive events that take place on campus, with damages and noise getting out of control to the point where houses like Windham, JA, Freeman, Johnson and KB are being completely trashed almost every weekend, not to mention the disturbance that floor parties cause to those who may live on the floor but do not want to take part in such an event.

Floor parties, and even room parties, also supply what seems like endless amounts of alcohol to eager students. Instead of having a keg tapped after two or three hours, you have drinking games and shotgunning beers. Socially, I hope everyone can plainly see that a small, narrow floor (or and even smaller room) in a house is the worst place to host a party and cause exclusivity.

But with common rooms out of the question, where else are we to go?

The bar is one option, and one that I have grown to love this year, but if you are under 21 and want to “socialize” what are you to do? I fully understand that the college cannot condone underage drinking but the reality of the matter is that underage drinking does exist at this college, and at every other college, and will always exist because drinking is part of our culture as college age students (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that). With just the bar as a social space to drink how is a college that prides itself in community establishing any community when they are separating the students from each other during social situations. Perhaps I feel this now more than ever since I am 21 but I am meeting less and less under classmen because socially we are severely separated.

The office of Residential and Education Living offer a party planning training (Keg 101) for of age students at the beginning of every year and I attended this year in the hopes of actually making kegs have a triumphant return. But about ten minutes into the meeting a dark cloud appeared over my happy keg-filled future and by the end of the meeting it was a torrential downpour raining on my parade. I now understand why it seemed like kegs were here one day and gone the next when the social hosting rules changed.

These regulations I speak of are: no student under 21 may enter, there must be three trained hosts at the event at all times, the hosts may not drink, the hosts much pay for everything and cannot charge anyone who comes to the party and even if there is alcohol left over it must be dumped at the end of the allotted time for the party. Sadly after seeing the few numbers of students who even attended this training, and after hearing the rules I can assure you this will be another keg-less year at Connecticut College.

The stipulations for hosting a keg may be guidelines that Res Life thinks will make drinking safer on campus and prevent students from trashing our new and beautiful common rooms, which are now used as classrooms. But the exact opposite seems to be happening because due to these regulations NO ONE wants to host a keg.

If the administration is serious about changing the drinking culture on campus then one way is to use the new (or the old) social spaces. I do not have all the answers but I do have a few suggestions. One is to have kegs that allow all students to attend but to use bracelets to indicate those who are 21. Another is to have fewer than three social hosts, since that seems absurd, as does the fact that they cannot drink, even responsibly.

I am simply disappointed that the classes that have entered Conn Coll after my freshman year have no idea what pleasurable and responsible drinking used to be when we had kegs. The amount of house damage and transports was down when these kegs still took place. There needs to be a compromise about using the house common rooms as both academic and social spaces, because first and for most the common rooms are social, gathering spaces for the students in those houses and the social hosting rules need to be strongly reconsidered.

If you have any more thoughts on this or anything else please come to an SGA meeting any Thursday night in Cro 1942 at 7:15 and tell your student government representatives what you think!