As a senior, dealing with Res Life (on both intimate and representative levels) for four years, and drinking a lot has led me to strongly hate St. Lawrence’s on-campus housing policy.
I find Res Life to be overly callous, insensitive and frustrating. It is also difficult to agree with many of their policies, even when I try to understand the financially tenuous state of the University. But here is my main issue: many of their decisions are based around the idea of “fostering communities” but lack the ability to change or adapt.
Is it working? Who thinks that drinking isn’t a problem here? How many professors think FYP’s are a good idea? How many times have I been stimulated intellectually or academically in a campus residence?
The answer is less than the number of times I have been encouraged to drink, to avoid work, and to do any number of wasteful things. A lot less. I understand the philosophical underpinnings of living on campus, but I don’t understand why you can’t see that it doesn’t work.
How can this university successfully raise young adults when forming and policing their behaviors comes down to overstretched campus security, ill matched CA’s, and peers who are rarely 21 years of age? In this town, there are no role models for St. Lawrence students, no one to look up too.
Most underclassmen witness seniors turn 21 and immediately binge their faces off. It’s a ritual. Realistically: we’ve all been drinking for years, what’s the big deal if we can buy the booze ourselves?
I am at a loss for solutions to the overindulgent drinking culture on campus. And it is one of my main arguments against living on campus. I wish you luck Res Life, and I am glad to be leaving SLU. It’s a disgusting bubble of arbitrary, businesslike, bureaucratic, and forced community life. It isn’t real here, and though I understand why a boarding school can be good for some, I find it unbearable for myself.
Before you argue that I am exaggerating, remember: it may be easier for you all to stomach if you have a home to go to away from this. If you have another social sphere, please invite me; I’m sick of this one.
P. Alex Comeau
