I am a little late on the uptake, but it appears our campus has taken a renewed interest in our social, or lack thereof, lives. Or perhaps long-simmering tensions have boiled over and all our angst and frustration is being made known. Or maybe we just had an opportunity to complain. No matter what perspective you have, President Liebowitz’s discussion on social life has revealed a lot on the administration and, more importantly, us as a campus.
Yes, I admit it. We do not have the most “college” of social lives. This is not a large school, this is not a school that still has Greek affiliations (with maybe the exception of KDR), so what are we really to expect? It’s Middlebury for God’s sake. We enjoy beer from independent breweries, long sunsets, and complaining about our workload. Getting belligerent in a toga on a Tuesday was never part of the equation. Though that does sound like fun.
We have a tremendous amount of trouble admitting who and what we are. There is an identity crisis somewhere in between loving a drinking culture and going out a couple times a semester. Do we want a more robust social life on campus? The answer seems to be generally yes. How do we get it? That’s the real question.
Well, who is responsible for taking all our fun?! Clearly, we are just a ton of fun on our own if only the administration and the long arm of the law, Public Safety, would just leave us alone! We’ve all heard that argument, and we’re all bored of it. I could tell you our Public Safety officers are doing their job, I could say to the kid chanting “F*%* Pub Safe!” to get over yourself. Most importantly, I could tell anyone that anywhere in the world there is no police officer that is nicer than one of our Public Safety officers.
In many ways we have come to this frustrating logical end by way of default. We need someone to blame for our stifled social culture, and Public Safety is the easy target of authority. I understand that. I have had Public Safety knock on my door at 8:45 p.m. on a Friday in an upperclassman dorm. I have had Public Safety lecture me about the placement of chips at a party. However, I would gladly suffer all these inconveniences in return for just any one of the times I have needed Public Safety officers and they have responded. Officers Paul, Bryan and Amy I immediately think of as people who have responded with professionalism and genuine concern to situations that I could no longer control. My only true regret is that I’ve only gotten to know these people from those situations. Wouldn’t it be better if student organizations took them out to dinner? Developed professional, working relationships rather than antagonistic ones? If we can’t control what the administration does, then that is on us as students. If we want a better social experience, changing the way we interact with Pub Safe on a regular basis could go a long way.
What about us though? Are all our misbegotten social woes really the fault of an administration or policy? Or is it something to do with us? Before you answer, think about the last time you threw some kind of event yourself, be it registered or un-registered. When was the last time you were on the contributing rather than receiving end of the Middlebury social experience? To the small number of you out there who have hosted large events you know that they are rather expensive, rather stressful at times, and can often be received by a student body that is plainly ambivalent. Let alone the risks of dorm damage, angry drunks and sexual assault. If everyone contributes, these responsibilities tend to even out. However, when it consistently falls upon a few select student organizations, it becomes burdensome, and frankly unappealing, to keep throwing those types of events.
Our social lives are not simply going to be handed to us — nothing in life ever is. The larger “Middlebury” experience is not going to simply be given to you. It has to be made, and that takes more than a little effort. The biggest misconception we have as a student body is that words alone will create change, be that selfish change or larger social change. Before we start demanding policy changes, let’s start living the changes we want seen. I guarantee we will have better luck. If you want a certain social experience, go out there and get it. Get your host training or your TIPS training or crowd manager training. Get to know Public Safety as genuine people. Let’s work on it ourselves; maybe everyone will have a little more fun.
