The End of 40s on 40?
Sure, seniors may be looking at the worst job market in decades, but at least they have some of Columbia’s fun senior traditions to look forward to!
Or, you know, not. The administration’s “War on Fun” campaign looks to be well on its way to destroying a proud senior pastime, as sources tell Bwog that Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger and SDA Director Robert Taylor have ordered the student councils to come up with a replacement for the once-loved tradition of 40s on 40.
Up until two years ago, seniors would drink 40s on Low Steps to celebrate 40 days before graduation. The public drinking made for some actual class unity, and hilarious scenes of tour guides assuring parents “no, we only get this way once a year.” But, like any evil dictatorship, Columbia soon tired of the civil disobedience, and forced the class councils to put on a poorly-run picnic instead. Both years of cheap imitation saw nothing but frustrated students in long lines for little beer.
What’s the new excuse? Apparently, Shollenberger and Taylor told the councils that the university is “no longer comfortable” hosting an event whose primary draw is alcohol. Aside from the lack of any incidents to support this new crackdown, of course, the university’s quick to drop such quibbles when donors are involved: for example, the official Columbia University Club of New York, which has an open bar, or almost every single cocktail party that the university throws for potential donors. But if the War on Fun’s been any guide, justification is not the University’s strong suit.
Tags: 40s on 40, seniors, Things that don't rock, Things that'll stop us from donating when we're old, war on fun, What could possibly go wrong?
4 February 2009 @ 5:07 PM · 58 comments
on 
can’t wait to get out of here! also, can’t wait to see what kind of lame substitute event the councils throw together.
Graduate a semester early and your 40 days is January 2nd. True it is probably too cold for an Olde English, but it’s also too cold for CU security to do anything about it.
it is never too cold for an Old English!
WTF will they do next? This place is starting to feel more like a convent than college.
Speaking of student life-related slip-ups… whatever happened to the exorcisms?
shollenberger, taylor, and kromm can go fuck themselves. i most certainly will be drinking a 40 on 40.
sunday march 1 is 80 days from commencement. so new tradition, double 40s on march 1?
for 2011′s, April 28th, is 750 days until graduation.
750s on 750?
LISTEN TO THIS MAN
Why don’t we just go back to brown-bagging our 40′s? Unless the University closes the Low Steps, they would have no way of stopping us. Last I checked, Columbia isn’t a dry campus in any case.
this is bs. I’m definitely drinking a 40 (or two or three), whether it’s in a brown bag or transferred to a nalgene or a blue java mug. columbia’s war hasn’t stopped my fun yet, and i’m not going to let it stop now.
This thing has only existed for a year and seemed less fun than the original so if they’re going back to non-enforcement of DIY version of it that’s better anyway.
That really sucks! What’s next, not having Class Day?
41 on 41!
Shot chased by vodka 4/19/09
41 on 41!
Shot chased by vodka 4/19/09
41 on 41!
Shot chased by vodka 4/19/09
Who needs the council. I call for a guerrilla social event. 40s on 40s started as a casual event without the bureacratic planning of the student councils and the administration.
Let’s do it without them
*Shot chased by a forty on 4/19/o9
I may not have already had a 40 earlier this evening
WOOHOO! SENIOR YEAR!
perhaps the class councils could contact the representatives from the father and grandfather classes to have some sort of joint throwback party in which they (the older classes) institute a rite of passing for the current class. The university cannot say no to alums trying to give more money…just a thought
ye olde (english) 40s on 40?
none of you have started to threaten CU and say youre not going to donate…maybe it goes without saying?
lame.
free dickrubs @ Barnard.
What are they going to do if 300 people show up on the steps with 40s?
of course.
god folks have short term memories. this hasn’t been a long standing tradition. plus from what i remember, it wasn’t fun…
when it was students doing it on their own, it was just a pathetic attempt by lame, awkward students to ape some collegiate drunkard stereotype b/c they have no life outside of the gates
when it was ran by the administrators, it was pathetic seniors kooked up in a pen begging for hours waiting for their two beers… which ran out before they even got to the second one… ah yes, damn the man who ended this “tradition”
good riddance.
Why do you hate freedom?
This is probably for the best, we continue to drink 40′s on 40, and don’t deal with the lame event.
Apparently administrators plan to flood the area with public safety officals that week to make sure people aren’t brown-bagging unofficially. How to fight this:
1) Councils/Bwog should prepare a template petition letter, forcefully expressing to Shollenberger our disappointment with this decision. Talking about the lack of school spirit & community on campus, the lack of traditions, the impact on giving, and the fact that there was NOTHING wrong with the events in the past will be effective. If half the CC/SEAS body sends this email, that’s 600-700 emails flooding Shollenberger’s inbox.
2) A similar draft letter should be put together for alums. We then send the letter to one or two alums we know personally. Alums are usually protective of tradition and often make donation decisions on those grounds. If half the student body sends this to 1 alum that’s again 600-700 pissed off alums writing in at a time when the University can ill-afford to turn off potential donors.
Shollenberger also needs student/alumni support to get his term as Dean of Student Affairs renewed. His confidence in Robert Taylor needs to be undermined, and Taylor must be returned to Azkaban. Fight back because this is a dangerous, dangerous trend – the fact that we can’t do a BBQ that serves alcohol is a disturbing precedent.
I meant senior class, but obviously everyone is welcome to send it.
Hahaha! Dance for me, maggots, whilst I watch with glee from my mansion! You’ll never understand my maniacal plans to end all fun! And the kicker? All my family money came from bootlegging! Bahahahahahaha.
just hold the damn event over at barnard.
“Apparently, Shollenberger and Taylor told the councils that the university is “no longer comfortable” hosting an event whose primary draw is alcohol.”
Robert Taylor doesn’t feel comfortable about an event whose primary draw is alcohol? So I guess Lerner Pub and all events at Baker Field are out too, huh.
Also, for those of you feeling rage against the establishment, it’ll turn to nostalgia right around Class Day and Commencement. It’ll turn back to rage once the first solicitation for money comes. Then you’ll finally give in to phone calls and mass mailings send 10 bucks, but stipulate that it’ll only go to financial aid, in the vain hope that the money will then be actually put to use instead sucked into an administrative blackhole. You’ve been forwarned.
this was a pretty well written commentary. I think that’s a first for bwog. unlike that embarassing hit piece you ran on Matthew Fox written by a freshman attempting to empathize with seniors. uh, yeah.
I couldn’t agree more with the general tone of all of these comments. When I first came to Columbia it was still lame, but at least the school wasn’t Big Brother. One of the few things I could say to my friends at other schools was that at least the school didn’t care about how you spent your free time–that is until the War on Fun. I can only hope that the administration’s shutting down of 40s on 40 is the last exemplification of how an out of touch university has destroyed whatever shell of a college experience Columbia used to offer–but I doubt it will be.
I think anybody who cares about having a fun college experience should brown paper bag it on 40s on 40. Let’s get organized, people.
Schollenberger sucks. Can one of the cute gay boys in CC ’09 please take one for the team and go and sleep with him and then messily reveal it to the media so that he is forced to resign?
Dear Columbia,
I will donate significantly less if you continue to not let me have fun while here. This is not a joke. Less money for you. And you need it. Stop rule-following and fun-killing. I will not donate when I am an alum unless you let me have fun now. Thanks.
Wow. When Cornell replaced Slope Day with events, there were good reasons; kids getting fucked up and sent to the hospital, alcohol and coke OD’s, local HS’ers getting in trouble there… However, the admins took charge of it and actually came up with substantive replacement events, and allowed 21+ to continue drinking. Here at teh Columbia, it seems there is a severe lack of imagination. Lame. I guess it’s Lion’s Head for me! (I never have time to drink anymore anyway. sucks.)
also- I don’t hear about seniors gettin’ rowdy and stupid here at CU on drinkin’ day. Methinks we’re too tame for shenanigans like that… At least Cornellians have an excuse to go insane, what with the no sunlight…
i think they originally got rid of 40s because someone threw a 40 at prezbo as he walked out of Low…
actually, i was spanked!
compare it to what others schools do… this is nothing. what about cornells (i think its cornell) slope day?
The campaign to raise the drinking age would help. Lets start it!
Fuck this shit- you’ll force me to make all my decisions by my self with no advising, work billions of hours plus two internships. give me a pile of shit for a student center, and STILL have the gumption to assume i cant control myself with a 40 of beer!?
let these deans spend 1 week as a columbia student and theyll realize we already have more responsability than they ever did.
Seniors are basically all at least 21. Fuck the university, that’s how I treat ‘em.
if they’re gonna treat us like animal house, I say we embrace our inner-bluto for one final blaze of glory. Bum-rush Low Library, throw a massive kegger in the rotund, and get completely wasted. Tip off the local media.
i dont even drink, but i loved 40s on 40 for my frosh-junior years. i always happened to be good friends w/ seniors each year and chilling with them and half the school on the steps on bright sunny afternoons, until dusk came and sent everyone scurrying for dinner on Broadway will always be a Columbia memory i cherish deeply. I was quite disappointed that my senior class did not get to experience that, though our 40 days fell on a rainy, bitter cold April afternoon which would’t have been fun even if it weren’t regulated. Schollenberger needs to step back here and allow the one event which was organic, long-standing (at least from 03-06), and community building to come back.
Alcohol wasn’t its only draw admin! Chillin’ out was.
Since the administration is almost assuredly going to put security guards all around the steps, go loot other parts of campus since security will be scarce!
has anyone thought about the fact that the economy is in a shit hole and that Bollinger sent out emails about how we do not have as much money… maybe this is a way to save a little for senior week
I should say that a whole bunch of future donors or potential donors are involved. Anyway, I understand the desire not to hold an event whose “primary draw is alcohol.” It is understandable. That said, those of us who are rule-abiding and law-abiding seniors watched all of the previous classes enjoy this event and have waited for and earned our turn. It is legal for us to drink– those of us which are not of legal age would invariably be turned away anyway– and we should be allowed to do so.
30s on 30 – anyone?
There’s no such thing as a 30. Maybe a 12 oz beer on may 8 instead?
22′s on 22? Doesn’t have as nice of a ring to it, though
Just when you think the admin couldn’t suck any more, they come through like champions. The problem with trying to arrange any alternative thing en masse is that security will get wind of it and break it up, unless it is all done by email and not facebook/bwog.
we should probably use W.A.S.T.E. in that case
That actually bugs me the most about the whole matter is that I believe the only reason they stopped it in the first place was because the class councils asked for extra trash cans to be provided to stop everyone making a mess. Thus they asked the school to sign off on it, so they clamped down and banned it. Way to reward responsiblity there.
it wasn’t the class councils. it was the president of ccsc that asked for it, who wasn’t supposed to be involved in the first place.
schollenberger you’re a nice guy…but let us have our fun.
please.
do what #23 says. It sounds like it will work, and does not take a lot of work.
iSenior underground s going to plan something to make up for 40s on 40 at Pourhouse.
If it’s anything like that last bar crawl it will probably be a shitshow.
An expensive shitshow, but I HAVE A JOB AND I DON’T CARE.
Wow, people seem pathetically comfortable with giving up for one (shitty) reason or another.. creativity is definitely lacking.
This is really some successful student council.