EDITORIAL |
THE SPECTATOR |
| May 2, 2008 |
Town-Gown (,) ExposureFor the most part, members of Hamilton College's student body take our position within the greater Clinton community seriously. The villagers welcome us into their town with open arms, and we in turn respect the fact that Clinton is home to two thousand people, and as such is not our own personal playground. Despite the "Hamilton bubble" effect, we are, for the most part, cognizant of the fact that what we do reflects on the campus community, and its perception by the local population. But when a few individual members of the Hamilton student body choose to showcase their poor decisions in front of the greater community, they weaken this bond of goodwill, and not only publicly embarrass themselves, but their fellow students, the faculty, and the College itself. In the eyes of the people of Clinton, it becomes harder and harder to prove that we are a collection of intelligent, thoughtful young people. Good or bad, what we do as individuals reflects on the entire Hill. This has grown more and more apparent in recent weeks, when time and again small contingencies within the student community have embarrassed the college with inappropriate, illegal, and childish behavior. At the Sacerdote Great Names Concert, President Joan Hinde Stewart was not at the podium for more than a few seconds before Hamilton students began to boo her. This appalling display of ungrateful, inappropriate behavior took place in front of hundreds of people, including members of the Board of Trustees, local high school students, and Aretha Franklin herself. Those few students behaved in a manner inappropriate in any setting, and embarrassed the entire College. Only a few nights later, more students repeated this very public tarnishing of Hamilton's reputation by pulling seven fire alarms within a fifteen-minute span in the middle of the night. This not only massively inconvenienced hundreds of fellow students, but also woke up volunteer firefighters from their homes for no reason. If one of the volunteers had been injured on their way to turn off the erroneous alarms, the responsibility would lay at the feet of those who thought it would be funny to cause a bunch of locals some trouble. By extension, all of Hamilton College would be tainted with the memory of a Clinton firefighter being hurt because of a stupid prank. Perhaps the anonymity provided by the swelling crowds of a concert and unnamed practical jokes gave a few disaffected students the protection to behave in a way they never would on their own, but other members of the student body can't use cognitive dissonance as an excuse for their embarrassing behavior. What kind of image of Hamilton is presented to the people of Clinton when within a two-hour period, three students are arrested in downtown Clinton? No doubt, being arrested and charged with lewd behavior, harassment, and underage possession of an open container is distressing to those who face possible jail time, but we all share in the humiliation of a few students' bad choices. We are part of a school with a stellar academic reputation, known across the country as home to intelligent, driven students and respected faculty. We as a community must decide: if we are willing to make choices that can result in the erosion of our own reputations, are we also willing to put the reputations of our fellow Hamilton students at risk? by Scott Bixby '11 |