After more than three years at Hopkins, parts of which have been spent both as a van driver and a party-goer, I feel I have a bit of license to go out on a limb here: The security escort van service should be made, if anything, more like a free taxi service for drunks and party-goers.
In the last several weeks, we have seen trips from residences to commercial centers and non-school related stops cut back during the nighttime. In the same period we have seen the release of an annual crime report that comes with a general message that crime in general is going down, but that we, as students, are out of control because alcohol policy violations are on the rise. The administration's response to the latter has been to make the alcohol policy more stringent, with the so-called "three strikes" rule keeping frat brothers and off-campus social butterflies on pins and needles about throwing a good party.
In an Oct. 14 news story, sophomore Amy Chen was quoted as saying that the new changes in the security escort van service are "really unfair to the people who weren't partying," with the idea being that people who were partying were taking advantage of the van service and using it as an extravagant, free, personal taxi service. The very idea that Chen, or for that matter any student on this campus, should have to worry about getting home safely at night is ludicrous and speaks poorly of Hopkins' commitment to its students' security.
In the last year, city councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke has, with the help of the Hopkins administration, made throwing a party in an off-campus residence after 11 p.m. nearly impossible. It's been some five years since the students were allowed to drink on the Beach, and only recently has alcohol consumption returned to E Level.
What do we hear from the three Big B's (Brody, Burger and Boswell)? Well, life is gonna get better, because now we have a Fall Festival, a Traditions Committee and plenty of Hop Cops on patrol.
If we, as students, let these bread and circuses fly without our objection, then Hopkins will become a black hole of social life. We will become, even more than we already are, "that school full of nerds who can never lighten up." And our academic programs will no longer be able to attract the most well-rounded, competitive students out there, our precious U.S. News rating will plummet and we can kiss many of our endowment donations goodbye.
In the last two years, we have seen the ghastly murders of two of our fellow students and countless other menacing crimes in our neighborhood. By cracking down on drinking and not providing four-year housing for its students, Hopkins has forced its social life off campus and into Charles Village. In doing so, the administration has left itself with three options. They can either do away with campus social life (read: parties) altogether, bring social life back to Homewood (read: loosening the alcohol policy or opening campus bars), or provide students with a safe environment to party off-campus (read: a safe and reliable security escort service).
The first option is an impossibility -- college age students will not stop enjoying their lives, nor should they have to. They shouldn't be made to feel bad about partying, which seems to be what is happening when a Hopkins sophomore has to scapegoat her classmates who were partying in order to get a ride home.
The second option, bringing alcohol back to campus, is still in its infancy. Holding a few events on campus might be a good start, but the administration can't seriously expect 4,500 students to be satisfied with Friday night mixers at the Hop Stop.
The third option, the question of the escort van service, is all we have left to work with. If the administration only gave Security a budget for five more vans, gas to make them run and salaries for both student drivers and civilian drivers, Lt. Kibler could run his show properly without having to answer for the long wait times, high usage of the service and unreasonable late-night calls.
Cutting the van service and insisting that in getting from party to party we are "on [our] own," as Kibler put it last week, is exactly what the administration ought not to do. Trying to convince us in an annual crime report that our neighborhood is safe, when we know from painful and tragic personal experience that it is not, is not only backwards thinking, it's also dangerous.
--Robbie Whelan is a senior history and writing seminars major from Pittsburgh, Pa.
