Rock rolling is immature

by Dana Stewart

Tuesday February 7, 2006

Two weekends ago, I was briefly at a party in Rothschild, which was fun enough (they had a good DJ). Unfortunately, about 20 minutes after I got there one of the residents of the apartment came rushing through the door, telling everyone to get into a bedroom quickly because security had arrived. What that really meant was that the party was over, even though the security guards didn’t actually come upstairs.

However, the remarkable part was outside. As we were walking out of the New Dorms, some kids who lived there were struggling to move a giant rock back to the side of the road where it belonged.

Someone had rolled one or more giant rocks into the center of the paved road that goes around the North Lawn, ostensibly to cause a ruckus and act like a badass.

This is a perfect example of the non-creative, silly, alcohol-and-hormone-fueled ‘pranks’ that SLC students are prone to (TP? That’s so seventh grade), and it is also the reason why we have the party policy that we do. Random acts of destruction, which this basically was, are in no way a protest or any kind of articulated statement–they’re just dumb.

If a drunk person at that party had fallen and broken their head, their savior-ambulance would have had a tough time driving over that giant boulder in the road, especially when it was after 2 a.m. and the entire metro area was blanketed in a very thick fog. If those kids had not moved the boulder back at the behest of Security, a Colin worker might have had to do it while he was trying to pick up the trash in his truck the next day.

Though these things are incredibly juvenile, maybe they happen because students feel that there’s nothing to do around campus.

The new Student Affairs staff has reconstructed our party policy in the hopes of making it easier to register parties. However, it certainly doesn’t seem to be working this way. Any party, registered or not, will be broken up by Security. It’s just a matter of time. I have yet to leave a party on this campus because it’s just over, not because there are the glaring headlights of a security vehicle and blue-and-black-jacketed people urging us to "break it up."

The problem here is clearly not with Security. They generally seem like nice people, and are motivated by very practical and rational concerns for safety, above all else.

However, I do not and probably will never believe that shutting down parties will stop kids from drinking to the verge of death. It seems to me that the new anti-partying doctrine around these parts is aimed at morally "cleaning up" our school and pushing a new conservative, sober mindset on our student body.

A concern for safety is one thing, but a push to get people to stop using drugs and alcohol because such use is "wrong" is quite another.

I simply do not believe that drug abuse is one of the most serious problems affecting the student body at this college. Of course it exists, but I have not seen it cause as many problems as the lack of a place to relax and socialize like adults.