2008 Woodie Awards
A Friday night in the life of Union College: fraternities and authorities
David Ludwig '09
Issue date: 1/17/08 Section: Opinions
It's eleven-thirty on a Friday night. A girl drinks vodka with her friends in a Richmond double while simultaneously putting on her makeup and shoes. The long awaited night is beginning after a week of stress and exams, and she's excited to forget it all for just a little while. They finish getting ready and head to the frat.
Approaching the house, they peer over the mass of students at the slightly elevated brothers on the porch, guarding the door and checking IDs. They put wristbands on the overage and not on the underage. Everyone's eager to get inside. And why shouldn't they? This is where the night lives. Tonight all else is dead and lame.
The brothers look around and talk nervously with each other. They look down the stairs to the parking lot, where a campus safety SUV is parked near three standing officers, chatting and getting ready to make their rounds.
A brother turns to the girl.
"Do you have student ID?" She shows it to him.
"You 21?" She says no.
"Alright, go on in."
She walks in and hears the familiar music. She wades into the crowd of like-minded peers and starts to strip the week away, dancing and letting go, meeting friends and having a ball. Her friend with a wristband gets her a drink from the servers behind the bar.
Outside the campus safety officers ascend the stairs and walk through the crowd. They're grave and tough, and they know what they're doing.
"What can I do for you officers?" The brother with the wristbands asks them.
"We're just going to have another look around. We want to make sure everything's going alright."
The brother hesitates and then nods, praying that everything seems well to them. He opens the door for them and goes back to work, checking IDs and wrist banding.
An officer immediately sees a girl on the stairs with a beer. He writes this down. Beers going upstairs are not allowed, even though there is no real bathroom on the first floor and no safe place for a girl to place her drink if she needs to go upstairs to use a toilet. This girl didn't want to put her beer down and didn't want to chug, so she snuck it upstairs past the brother guarding the way.
Approaching the house, they peer over the mass of students at the slightly elevated brothers on the porch, guarding the door and checking IDs. They put wristbands on the overage and not on the underage. Everyone's eager to get inside. And why shouldn't they? This is where the night lives. Tonight all else is dead and lame.
The brothers look around and talk nervously with each other. They look down the stairs to the parking lot, where a campus safety SUV is parked near three standing officers, chatting and getting ready to make their rounds.
A brother turns to the girl.
"Do you have student ID?" She shows it to him.
"You 21?" She says no.
"Alright, go on in."
She walks in and hears the familiar music. She wades into the crowd of like-minded peers and starts to strip the week away, dancing and letting go, meeting friends and having a ball. Her friend with a wristband gets her a drink from the servers behind the bar.
Outside the campus safety officers ascend the stairs and walk through the crowd. They're grave and tough, and they know what they're doing.
"What can I do for you officers?" The brother with the wristbands asks them.
"We're just going to have another look around. We want to make sure everything's going alright."
The brother hesitates and then nods, praying that everything seems well to them. He opens the door for them and goes back to work, checking IDs and wrist banding.
An officer immediately sees a girl on the stairs with a beer. He writes this down. Beers going upstairs are not allowed, even though there is no real bathroom on the first floor and no safe place for a girl to place her drink if she needs to go upstairs to use a toilet. This girl didn't want to put her beer down and didn't want to chug, so she snuck it upstairs past the brother guarding the way.
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