Time to move past anger, discuss solution to event ban

At the end of his e-mail to the Class of 2011, David Lindsay mentioned the "final great memories of your college career." Quite frankly, the senior events recently canceled were part of the "final great memories" I had been looking forward to experiencing for the last three and a half years. When I read this news, I felt like the administration had canceled Christmas.

The Senior Rewind dance was a joke among many of my friends before it happened. None of us had the faintest desire to attend, mostly because we figured no one else would, apart from the extended circle of those putting it on. As it turns out, we were not far off. It is no secret how poorly attended this event turned out to be. As far as I have heard, exactly who we expected to be there was there and exactly who we expected to be belligerently drunk was belligerently drunk. Such things happen when there is nothing better to do, i.e. no one else in the building. We avoided this event for these reasons.

Now, because I didn't go to a shabbily executed and uninteresting dance, my relative responsibility is being punished. Like I said before, for years I have been looking forward to the traditional and well-planned events at the end of the year. The administration took those away before even giving us the dignity to explain that the handful of idiots who got out of hand at the Senior Rewind dance are not representative of the senior class and that it is insulting to consider them as such. Cancellation of the end-of-the-year events was correspondingly insulting and does not bode well for "final great memories" of our college careers.

However, at the senior meeting last Friday, I was made aware that this move has been long in the making, due to the debauchery and enormous sense of entitlement of previous classes. I now understand that the administration's hands are tied, in a sense, because many of the venues and transportation companies usually involved no longer wish to do business with Gonzaga. Previous classes may have ruined this for us more than we ruined it for ourselves.

I am certainly not the only livid senior to express feelings of betrayal to the administration and to the Rewind demolition crew, but I suppose the time has come to move past that and discuss a solution. David Lindsay did not inspire confidence at the meeting Friday that the events could be reinstated, but did continually allude to the possibility. It may not be fair that it falls upon us to re-imagine the image of an admirable Gonzaga student, but it has, or must, in order to enjoy those celebrations we have been anticipating. I like to party as much as anyone else, but let's help each other to do so less destructively and encourage underclassmen to follow our example. Being a Gonzaga senior does not sanction disrespect to anyone.