the 941

It’s 2 a.m. on a Friday night. Most years, the party at New College would just be getting started. Not this year. These days, New College’s public parties, known to students as “walls,” are starting, and ending, early.

As tonight’s wall winds down, equipment technicians wait for one last song to play out before they pack up the student government-owned speakers. A few students linger in Palm Court, the Mecca of New College social life. Most, though, simply finish off what’s in their red cups and slink back to their dorms.

New College President Gordon “Mike” Michalson scaled back wall hours late last September as a temporary security measure after a nonaffiliated visitor assaulted a student. Curtailed party hours may sound like a small sacrifice, but for many at the school, the lack of student input in the decision is only the latest in a string of controversies that have some going as far as to say that it’s the end of New College as they know it.

In mid-October, Ben Reinhold received a letter. It told the second-year student to report to student affairs within three days, but didn’t say why.

When Reinhold met with Associate Dean Tracy Murray, he was told that three weeks prior, Resident Director J. Goodrich had filed a report claiming Reinhold had been drinking a handle of Jack Daniel’s in public. At the time of the incident, Goodrich did not confiscate the liquor or confront Reinhold. Reinhold says he has no way of remembering where he was that night, and claims he’s never seen a handle of Jack in his life.

Ultimately, it was his word against Goodrich’s. In a hearing before a judicial board created just this year, Reinhold pled his case. Goodrich was out of town at the time, but the board, composed of students and faculty, nevertheless decided to go ahead.

The board’s standard of proof demands a “preponderance of evidence” that demonstrates that “more likely than not” an infraction occurred. It ruled unanimously that Reinhold had more incentive to lie than Goodrich, and was therefore responsible. He received only a warning, but was told that he was liable to receive a more severe punishment if he appealed the ruling.

“It was the testimony of one woman who refused to appear,” Reinhold says. “I just felt betrayed by the students. The administration wants to show that they are catching minors with alcohol, so they were biased.”

Goodrich, for her part, feels the proceeding was fair. “It’s not about punishment; it’s about learning opportunities,” she says. “It’s an opportunity to grow, so I don’t understand why that’s such an awful thing, even if someone feels like they have been unjustly charged.”

Many students agreed with Reinhold — his attempts to raise the standard of proof required for the judicial board to rule against students, and to shorten the amount of time that can pass before an incident is brought to the board’s attention were met with widespread support at a student government meeting.

When I took on a position in student government in 2006, I was convinced that improved communication could repair increasingly tense relations between students and the administration. Yet we found ourselves in disagreement with administrators again and again. We voiced opposition to the installation of a swipe-card system in five new dorms, the establishment of official quiet hours and proposed changes to the student code of conduct. Our success varied from case to case, but each time, students felt the values that make New College special — openness, independence, fairness — were at stake.

By far the biggest controversy of the year centered on the move-in date assigned for returning students in the fall of 2007. A rearranged academic calendar eliminated the weekend between returning students’ arrival and the start of classes. When students objected, Dean of Students Wendy Bashant held firm, and cited three major concerns: Construction of new dorms was running late, the extra day would put a hardship on staff and first-year students needed a minimum of four days to adjust to their new environment on their own.

Many students felt Bashant’s concerns very easily addressed, and were particularly offended at the perceived suggestion that upperclassmen would somehow corrupt freshmen. The idea that students are best able to regulate themselves — and that attempts at supervising them will only push substance abuse out of sight — is at the heart of many students’ vision of New College culture.

The conflict escalated as it took on symbolic value. Students had their parents call the college to complain, and wrote letters to anyone with an address. When the same schedule was repeated this past fall, graduating seniors pledged to not donate money to the college until the situation was resolved. Nasty anti-Bashant graffiti appeared on sidewalks around campus. Ultimately, students resorted to sit-ins outside of the president’s office.

Students were eventually allowed the extra 24 hours, but Bashant, for her part, stands by her initial rationale. She points to the four EMT visits to campus the weekend before classes started. “That signifies four close calls,” she says, stressing that her primary concern is always students’ safety.

Bashant’s worries about liability and security are very much a reality. To qualify for federal support, New College must enforce a code of conduct, and college administrators can potentially face criminal charges for failing to prevent students from binge drinking. Fights and sexual harassment occur all too often at walls, and the number of students who don’t make it to their sophomore year is worrisome: 13 percent of 2006’s incoming class did not return for their second year.

Goodrich, in her first semester at New College, says that while she can sympathize with arguments for self-regulation, the new rules are about genuinely helping students. “I act out of student interest,” she says, adding that “a level of discretion” has been lost among students. “I think that the only thing we are really cracking down on is almost a level of disrespect. We are still pushing for self-regulation and hoping students will self-regulate.”

Director of Student Activities and ’95 New College alum Konnie Kruczek says student complaints about administration policies are nothing new. Her class had its share of sit-ins too. “We had a bunch of reasons,” she says. “Walls were shut down because of noise complaints. … We felt we weren’t being included in policy decisions.”

To a certain extent, dissatisfied students acknowledge that some changes are inevitable, given New College’s growing prestige. Nonetheless, developments in recent years have exasperated many students. Some, like myself, have grown apathetic and moved off campus. Others are committed to keeping their vision of the school alive — whether that means taking disputes to President Michalson or the Board of Trustees, staging hardball protests to prove they mean business, or working with administrators to resolve communication problems. “There are changes coming in policy whether we like it or not,” third-year Alex Cline wrote in a student forum post. “We can either try and get in on the ground floor on it and make them work for us fairly and non-intrusively, or we can just sit around and scream about it.”

It might sound like an idle debate, but for some students, New College as they know it hangs in the balance.

Photo courtesy of Paul Maneval.

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