A pub night for all seniors?

Senior Pub Night (Seen-yor pub nite): Evening of festivities with friends and classmates in a social environment... supposedly...



"Class of 2004

CALLING ALL CLASSMATES

You are cordially invited to attend

A Senior Pub night for the Class of 2004"



Calling ALL classmates? Not quite. Above is an excerpt from an invitation sent out prior to this past senior pub night on the evening of Nov. 13. Senior Pub Night was designed to bring the senior class together to socialize, fundraise for the senior class, and celebrate the last year together at Tufts. The senior pub night on Thursday, however, excluded two-thirds of the senior class from attending when tickets sold out soon after going on sale. Just 380 tickets were available, which accounts for barely a third of the senior class population. Granted, not every senior will purchase a ticket to every pub night, but I am willing to bet my favorite shot glass that the Senior Class Committee would have no problem selling to half the class (approximately 600 students). It may mean working a little harder to promote the events, timing the day more carefully, finding larger venues, or having the events on-campus, but t would be worth it.

Since we were currently in-between athletic seasons, many more athletes could attend this event, and the council failed to take that into consideration. I suggest trying to do a senior pub night on campus in Gantcher, much like the one held in Dewick at the end of the year, but hire a caterer to serve drinks and food instead of spending money on transportation. That way, the students could potentially save money by selling tickets at a lower rate, but the committee could offer students food as part of their buying incentive and sell more tickets. You could get a student entertainer to DJ the event (free), set up some chairs (also free) and make sure there is plenty of booze served at a semi-reasonable price -- that is all you need. An event such as this could entice even more students to come because some (believe it or not) do not like drinking in bars, or in general. If Gantcher is not an option, then try to have it at Dewick, or Jackson, or my house (I make a mean White Russian).

However, there are more issues than just the location of the event. The main problem lies in the structure of the ticket sale operation. Some tickets were even sold to underclassmen that should not have been able to purchase them in the first place, because Information Booth attendants neglected to check IDs. The invitation states loud and clear, "Class of 2004." The Senior Class Committee should have instructed the Information Booth attendants to take names and check identification numbers. This simple task would have eliminated many of the problems that occurred Thursday night. This excluded seniors from the event that they actually had the privilege of being invited to attend.

In addition, a mix-up at the Information Booth caused ticket sales to halt on Tuesday, Nov. 11 when "someone locked the senior pub night tickets somewhere" and they could not be found. Students who attempted to purchase tickets Tuesday were sent away empty-handed, some only to come back Thursday at noon when tickets were already sold out. Without any warning of how many tickets would be available, many seniors were shut out of an event that they should have been allowed to attend.

I realize that the last pub night supposedly did not sell out, and that the council lost money because they could not meet the bar minimum, but that could have been avoided with more advertising and word of mouth. If I had known the event was failing, I would have personally e-mailed every person I knew to buy a ticket. I suggest a more personal approach to ticket sales, by setting up a table in the campus center a couple of hours a day (during lunchtime) in the week prior to the event and selling tickets that way as well. If there are a lot of tickets to get rid of, simply having them available at the Info Booth will not sell the maximum.

A few things occurred due to these problems with Senior Pub Night -- many have been mentioned in previous articles, but I will clarify them for you now if you have been living in a hole for the past couple of days. As a result of the lack of organization and planning with ticket sales, tickets sold out and students were upset that they spent money on an event that would only include half of their friends. Consequently, some seniors decided to help out their friends by scanning a few fake tickets.

Unfortunately, a few too many students had the brilliant idea, which caused a bit of overcrowding at Hong Kong in Harvard Square, where the pub night was held. Later events included a fight, which led to a broken window on the hired transportation. How the broken window has anything to do with some extra people going to Hong Kong, I do not know. The window could have been broken by anyone, fake ticket or not. I would love to know how some fake tickets escalated this matter to such a degree. Regardless, the window is expensive to fix and the Tufts Office of Student Activities is out to catch the perpetrator (so watch out).

Of course, in typical Tufts manner, the way that they plan to catch the window-breaker who owes money is by spending... yes, more money. As a senior, you begin to realize that the time you have left here is dwindling, and that means time spent with friends becomes even more precious (I realize this is cheesy, but it is true). The Office of Student Activities recently gave word that they would give any student who had information about Thursday night's problems free Senior Week passes and cold, hard cash (potentially a $700 value). This act against students who used or created fake tickets to enter the pub night represents a serious misappropriation of Tufts funds, as well as an uncomfortable dilemma for students. To turn classmates against their peers is disgusting, and what is even more abominable is the fact that Tufts is spending thousands of dollars to weed out students who used fake tickets simply because the students actually wanted to participate in a school event in order to be with their friends.

It is no wonder why Tufts, for a top-tier university, has one of the lowest endowment rates in the country. Who would want to give back to an institution that causes alienation and disrupted camaraderie? At college, you are supposed to have the time of your life. This includes studying, making friends, and partying, if you are lucky. For me, this has certainly been the case... until now.

Shira Levy is a senior majoring in economics.