Who’s defending the students?
Dear Editors,
If I were a first-year student I’m sure I would be thinking the new city I’ve just moved into hates me. I would also be thinking that the allegations permanent residents were making were true and that students were a disease the city was tired of living with. Furthermore, it seems that the University istration agrees that there’s something wrong with their students that needs fixing. After all, it doesn’t appear anyone is disagreeing with the city’s opinion that Queen’s students are a menace to society and that we need to be tamed for humanity’s sake.
I mean, come on, who in their right mind would allow young adults to go to a concert and enjoy alcoholic beverages—and on their own campus nonetheless! No way, we must be locked up and in our bedrooms all hours of the day with the exception of when we’re contributing to the billion-dollar economic impact of the Queen’s community or the 10,000 hours of community service [students participate in].
According to the Kingston Whig-Standard—some high school-calibre tabloid I found lying on the floor in the JDUC—all we do is get drunk and wreak havoc on the ever-so-pleasant victimized residents that surround campus. This is the same newspaper that printed on their front page the headline “Day Two: More charges” with the photo of students nearly unconscious and with their heads between their knees below the headline. The photo, of course, was of the hypnotist show the frosh attended the day before. But as printed, it appeared as though those students were heavily intoxicated yet again. So what’s more disturbing? That our neighbours think we are a community of alcohol-drinking, lawn-peeing, vandalizing hoodlums who do nothing for their city but cause trouble? Or the fact that our student government and University istration are spending hundreds of thousands of our dollars bending over backwards trying to appease permanent residents? Being in fourth year I had hoped people, attitudes and prejudices would have changed by now—it seems I’ll have to wait at least another four years.
Alvin Tedjo
ArtSci ’06
A lesson gone too far
Dear Editors,
My friend and I were walking home after a pleasant evening out at the pubs, celebrating our friend’s birthday. Along the way, we met a young man—he was stumbling around the Ghetto, in an apparent drunken stupor. My friend and I decided that, despite almost being home, we would do the poor fellow a favour and walk him home. We found out that he lives in 325 McNeill—a good 10-minute walk on any normal day. With this man, it seemed to take an hour.
Some smiled at us along the way, possibly acknowledging our painful trek, or taking interest in watching the drunk leading the drunk. Having walked nearly to Ban Righ, we looked at his keys—he did not have a residence key. He did, however, have a student card. We decided that it was a good time to call Campus Security to let them deal with him. Having forgotten the Campus Security number, and forgetting, in my own inebriation, about the blue lights, I walked towards Ban Righ in order to use their phone to call.
At this point, he decided it would be a convenient time to stop us. He told us he is completely sober. He gives us a lecture regarding how we should make sure that people belong in residence before actually taking them there, because letting strangers into residence can have disastrous effects. What if he were a rapist?
We tried, to no avail, to find out if he’s working for any particular organization. We pointed out that we had told him earlier that we were second-years, and we wouldn’t have been able to get him into a residence without going through the front desk (who would have checked his student card). He pseudo-stumbled away. We shouted nasty words towards him, and walked back home in a terrible mood.
Despite being under the influence of alcohol, we had done almost everything right, and yet we still felt like we had been violated, when we should have been thanked for being good citizens.
There is always a necessary balance between personal security and one’s willingness to help others in need. It is difficult to improve one without compromising the other. Taking into the location, time of day, and other variables involved with making a similar decision, one may tend to lean closer to one side or the other. In a dark alleyway in downtown Toronto, personal security might be the best bet. In the populated student Ghetto and on campus, where Campus Security is present and police are working double time, there is no reason to leave drunk frosh alone in the streets.
Awareness tactics such as those that my friend and I encountered, if widespread in student areas, could result in a decreased willingness to help one another. Instead, students should be taught to take care of their drunk friends, to leave parties in groups.
Alex Goldberg
ArtSci ’08
Thanks to all involved in Frosh Week
Dear Editors,
On behalf of the Orientation Roundtable (ORT), the Campus Activities Commission and the AMS, I would like to thank all Techs, Geckoes, Coaches, Teaches, Capes, Bosses, Landlords, FRECs and Gaels for creating a friendly, welcoming atmosphere and helping put on one of the best Orientation Weeks in the history of Queen’s!
You are the front line—some of the first faces frosh meet when they get here. You all performed fantastically!
And to the various committees involved—congratulations on a week well done! Many of you have been working for as long as 10 months to create an Orientation Week beyond the incoming class of ’09’s wildest dreams. It was great to see all your hard work come to fruition.
I would also like to commend Features Editor Matthew Trevisan on the article he wrote entitled “From cow heads to shaving cream,” featured in the Frosh Extra of the Journal on Sept. 9. The article was informative, interesting, and well-written.
Thanks again and well done everyone!
Adrienne Quane
ORT coordinator
Frosh Week ‘hazing’ a disgrace to Queen’s
Dear Editors,
When I arrived in Kingston last week to begin my MSc at Queen’s, I was in for a few surprises. Most of these were very pleasant: the hot, sunny weather, the beauty of the city and the friendly helpfulness of the staff and students. One unpleasant surprise was Frosh Week. I my first undergrad Week of Welcome at the University of Alberta as a time of fellowship, learning and fun. I would have ed it very differently had there been purple people running around hurling abuse and shaving cream and slamming their jackets on the ground.
In Alberta, froshing and hazing are severely frowned upon—so much so that an older student squirting ketchup on first-year students could face criminal charges. I was therefore astounded and appalled by the treatment of the first-years by older students during Frosh Week. What can possibly be achieved by the aggressive harassment displayed? Is it meant to make students feel welcome? Safe? I read one sign that said “Die, Frosh, die!” Perhaps it is meant to suggest that they have to be “tough” to be a true Queen’s student. I realize that this is tradition (and I did note that it has been toned down from the piss and puck pit days), but it makes me feel grateful that my first week of university was not here at Queen’s. Don’t get me wrong—this University is great and I am very pleased to be here, but I feel that the antics of Frosh Week belong on the football field, not on the campus of a respectable university.
Emily Bamforth
MSc ’08
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