When the first snowflakes of Intersession fell into the AMR I courtyard, they did not find peace. They quickly found themselves pushed and shoved, crammed into buckets and pulled out, smashed and heaped together. Over the course of several days, a gleaming edifice rose in the courtyard.
It was an imprecise heap of snow. Though it had a complete dome recalling the Renaissance masters, no tools more advanced than buckets and determination were used. It was a marvel and a triumph that stood ten feet tall at its tip and comfortably sat a dozen people inside.
The past tense used here is not due to the warm weather, which has since melted down much of the remains of the Snowgloo. The past tense used here is thanks to the senseless and unwarranted actions of Hopkins Security.
The Snowgloo stood for a mere three days before a single maintenance man armed with a shovel came and knocked off the top half of the structure. Here I do not wish to lose the casual reader to a giggle and a glance to the next page. Inconsequential act though it may seem, Security’s destruction of the Snowgloo is actually a violation of the students’ trust, a laugh in the face of hard work, and, unquestionably, a thoughtless action. Here’s why.
Over two dozen students worked on the Snowgloo, with some who put in just a few minutes, and others putting in entire days. All told, the Snowgloo took just over 250 man hours to complete. It was a communal effort involving not just most of Sylvester house, but students from AMR II, Wolman and the Buildings. It was the sort of collegiate activity that engages not just bodies, but minds.
The man responsible for knocking off the top half of the Snowgloo gave the official reason, handed down from above: the freezing rain due that evening would melt away the hard packed snow, compromising the structure’s integrity and thus threatening to send chunks of ice plummeting onto the unsuspecting heads of those within. So, a risk of life and limb. This at first seems perfectly sensible and doubtless parents at home might agree.
But consider for a minute the other things Security lets students due that can be dangerous. Snow ball fights. Snow football (full-contact football that relies on the snow to lessen the pain of being thrown down). Sledding down Bloomberg Hill. Any kind of sport. Students, of their own volition and often with the encouragement and even the blessing of the school, regularly trek downtown, to the Inner Harbor, Fell’s Point and many less trendy and more dangerous areas; several branches of Hopkins’s administration sponsor service activities in run-down areas of town.
College students are adults. We are responsible for our own safety, and (for the most part) succeed day in and day out. If Hopkins lets its students go out into the dangerous world whenever they like, there is no reason to destroy a snow igloo. The Snowgloo represents a triumph of will, a team effort that was to be enjoyed by all. For the masterminds and the biggest contributors to the project, it was a structure to be extremely proud of; for all else it was to be admired.
At its death, a feeling of frustration beset the students who made the Snowgloo. Indeed, the anger and frustration that Security engendered by knocking it down far outweighs whatever minor bodily harm a small scrap of falling ice, which would have mere feet to accelerate before contact, would have had. Furthermore, since any ice chunk would only fall after significant melting, it is likely that said piece would be small in size; the odds that this piece would actually hit anyone are even smaller.
After all, the numerous trees around campus regularly shed snow and ice chunks. I myself received a wallop while passing under the leaning tree near the FFC. It did not hurt much, even from a height of about twenty feet.
If Hopkins lets students engage in real world activities that can be dangerous (Fell’s Point on Halloween), there is no reason to knock down a snow igloo that represents such hard work and such communal effort. There is even less reason when the danger posed is quite small and the anger created is quite large.
The proper course of action would have been to post a warning sign outside the entrance to the Snowgloo. Knocking it down without consultation or warning was a thoughtless and needless action. As adults, students deserve discretion over their own safety, and Hopkins Security should respect that.
In The Discourses, Machiavelli praises virtue: selfless action by citizens to build and protect their communities. Today, civic virtue is considered a cornerstone of any democracy, any republic and any community. When Hopkins students come together to build something, no matter how ephemeral, the only thing that should knock it down is the gentle Mother Nature, not a man with a shovel.
