Campus police say they had no trouble keeping things under control
Police, underage drinking, and inappropriate sexual behavior all showed up at Saturday’s wet-dry dance. However, “it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle,” said campus police supervisor Lee Dalberg.
Four campus police officers worked the dance and later a fifth officer was called in. Welcome Week leaders and residence advisers were also at the dance which took place in Rigby Hall last Saturday..
Dalberg said there was more underage drinking than in previous years.
“What you had was people who could drink going up to the bar and getting three or four drinks and passing them around.”
He also witnessed what he called “inappropriate behaviour” and “misuse of furniture.”
“This one guy just basically threw a girl on a table,” says Dalberg, who also ejected another couple from the dance. “What they were doing is best left to the privacy of your own home, between two people.”
The ejected students, inebriated and combative, engaged in inappropriate touching and partial nudity on the dance floor. Dalberg said the female student had her hand down her partner’s pants and his shirt was nearly off.
Police intervened when a fight broke out near Forest Hill road and the dance was shut down 10 minutes early.
Welcome week leader Kate Price says things were rowdy but not out of control.
“I was standing outside most of the time, making sure people didn’t run into the road or walk home alone.”
She’s been to wet-dry dances at STU before and she says this one wasn’t unusual.
But first-year student Eve Tunney was surprised. “It was nothing like high school.”
Tunney felt that some of female students had too much to drink, leaving them vulnerable. “The guys just come up behind you and start dancing. They are not shy at all.”
But Tunney says she didn’t see anything too outrageous and RAs were on hand to look out for students.
The presence of RAs and welcome week leaders is one reason why STU began hosting welcome week dances on campus 2 years ago.
“It’s a much better idea to bring it on campus,” says RA Deandra Doyle. She feels the first dance of the year has an unfair bad reputation.
“We were there, RAs and Welcome Week leaders, to intervene before anything happened … but there’s only so much you can do. When you have really young people drinking you hope they will make the right decisions for themselves but sometimes they don’t.”
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