Off-Campus parties Can Lead to Wreckless Behavior

Author: Sarah McCabe

"Should the Dean of Student Affairs come to believe that the activities of a [social] house are a detriment to the life of the larger College community, he or she may recommend to the president that the house be terminated at Middlebury College … In the case of a violation of guidelines and regulations, the dean of student affairs will issue a warning to a house. Further violations will result in the house being put on disciplinary probation, which will involve the loss of the right to hold parties and of other privileges to be specified by the Dean of Student Affairs..." (Middlebury College Web site ).
With the probation of ZOO and ADP, many of us have been forced to search and plan elsewhere for places to party. The extent of the effect of these probations however, could be much more than a "detriment to the life of the College community" when these new partying locations frequently entail the necessity of a designated driver and a vehicle that is usually packed beyond what is considered safe.
New destinations have included "the Farm," Cornwall, South Munger, "Green Porch" in the past. If the probation of social houses continues, more may accumulate. Why is this a problem, you wonder, when off-campus parties are usually so much fun? There are the simple answers, like these places being farther from a hospital, unsafe driving and the thought of being trapped when you want to leave but no one is sober to drive.
A group of friends and I had heard (along with the rest of campus) that a certain off-campus location was the place to be on Saturday night. There was little talk of any social house happenings because of the probations, so we dismissed them as part of the night's itinerary. So we first asked ourselves, "Who can we convince to drive?" The only people who usually will submit to such a request are those who a) owe their buddies a big favor and will have to take the night off from drinking to drive and pay back or b) those who partied way too hard the night before and are forced to realize that perhaps their livers need a night off. So we found someone to drive (with effort) and then planned accordingly. Whose car would she take, and even better — how many people could she fit in it?
But now the fun begins. Let's see how many people we can fit into a Toyota 4Runner! Lets see if we can pack eight people into an Audi A4! Is this safe? Probably not, but in our minds it sure is safer than having someone intoxicated drive. So we begin the drive to the off-campus party, 10 inebriated people on top of one another with that one sober driver praying the night will end soon — amidst drunken shouts .
While most of us truly put the effort in to avoid drunk driving, you cannot deny it — there will always be some drivers who drink anyway. I am not trying to defend these drivers; I am simply stating that perhaps the number of these drivers is increasing as a by-product of social house probations.
Obviously, the probations are probably students' fault and as a result, we should suffer the consequences with social house probations. In theory, this is correct. But when the fact of the matter is that students will find a place to party no matter how many houses one puts on probation, there comes an issue of safety. and the loss of the right to hold parties. I would simply like to ask which detriment is worse: a house getting a little rowdier than usual or a DWI accident taking the lives of the larger College community and students?
It's a tough situation but one that I honestly feel needs to be reconsidered. When more than one social house is on probation, partying must occur somewhere. There is nothing the school can do about that. But come on — we have no fraternities, no sororities and certainly nothing resembling Animal House (darn!), and still houses are put on probation? Partying will occur. Middlebury cannot control that. But perhaps we can put a little more thought into the extent of a probation penalty when the safety of students is at risk. We all love an off-campus party every once in awhile. But every weekend … sounds dangerous to me.

Sarah McCabe is a sophomore from New York.