You know despite getting a draw of Park Lot South, I must say I’m pleased, because I have a car this year and can escape the dull life that now exists on the weekend at this campus.
The Fraternity Quad has now been reduced to a mere hangout lawn, where people just go because it is a large common area. Administration is overlooking is that the college must provide some form of entertainment to its students. As great as we can be academically, no one wants to come to a school where everyone is bored. If the administration banned fraternities from campus it would cause a series of problems that are probably worse than having them on.
Financially speaking, they would lose countless amounts of alumni support. This financial loss would be made worse by the fact that the university would have to supply more entertainment for the students and would have to spend more money bringing events to campus to keep students happy.
As it stands, the university has yet to announce to the date for D-Day. Meliora Weekend has sharply declined even from last year, when it featured Jon Stewart, Hillary Clinton and Ted Turner.
This year’s dismal lineup boasts the New York state attorney general, who is of little interest to an out-of-stater such as myself, as well as the CEO of Jet Blue, who would probably come here for free to advertise so more kids use the airline to fly home. If the university really cares about their “customers” enjoying their stay at UR, they are going to have to upgrade the weekend entertainment.
Finally, pushing fraternities off campus would mostly likely elicit a strong increase in drunk driving by UR students.
Instead of merrily walking about campus in a drunken stupor, some would be forced to drive to bars and off-campus parties creating the temptation to drive drunk.
My advice is this, leave the fraternities alone. The students will be happy and maybe more young people will be willing to grit and bear through the sparkling gray of a Rochester morning.
Rosen can be reached at jrosen@campustimes.org.
