Drag
Ball Dialogues
It
seems every year around Drag Ball time there are debates about something
or other. This year the theme of those debates seems to be who has
a place at Drag Ball.
This year there are only 100 tickets set aside for people not affiliated
with Oberlin College. This limitation comes after a long debate
process between the Administration and the Drag Ball committee.
The Administration hoped to decrease security risks by allowing
fewer voyeurs, gawkers and people that simply believe that
it is a whopping good party (Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith,
see article page 3) into the event. While it is a good idea to restrict
access to those who dont respect the intentions of the event,
limiting access through the strict control of tickets also restricts
a really vibrant non-college participation that has come and
has been welcomed and have been vital members of evening (Assistant
Director of the Student Union Chris Baymiller, see article page
3). Unfortunately, this approach is too practical and in the end
doesnt restrict access on a basis of respect, but rather on
punctuality. If all the gawkers buy tickets before the drag queens,
nothing has been accomplished to promote a better event.
Concurrently, posters sponsored by the LGBTU have addressed the
issue of who should be at Drag Ball in a different way, by addressing
the original aims of the event (i.e. to promote awareness of drag
and transgender issues). However, these posters can exert no control
over who actually attends the event, no matter how good of a point
they make. It doesnt seem quite right that people in skimpy
clothing should outnumber people in drag at a Drag Ball, but that
has been the case in the past couple of years, and will probably
be the case again on Saturday.
Ultimately there is no way to please everybody on this issue, which
is not entirely a bad thing because you can learn more about yourself
from being uncomfortable than from being comfortable with an issue.
Drag Ball will continue year after year, and with it will come debates
and dialogue about gender and stereotypes.
Housing
Hassles
The
Colleges lottery system has determined off campus status for
more than a decade, but as enrollment has been high over the past
few years, there has been little trouble for juniors to get out
of the dorms. ResLife has always warned that off campus status was
not automatically granted, however, until this year there has been
little controversy.
This past year because of a whole series of factors we had
more empty beds than was fiscally responsible and an unusual large
number of juniors who chose off-campus and an unusual number of
students who elected to go on leave after signing rooms. This is
the first year in over two decades when beds were left empty,
Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith said (see article page 1).
Community is the big word on campus, and is part of the heart of
the housing debates at hand. If community is so important, then
why do students want to live off-campus? There are currently more
than 900 Oberlin students who live off-campus, and most of them
are effectively cut off from the Oberlin community in major ways;
certainly they dont interact with or provide models of behavior
for underclassmen in the same way they would if they remained campus
residents.
The appeal of a space of ones own outside of the campus, particulary
in a small place like Oberlin, is clear. However, our actions as
students in this particular arena have deep and lasting effects
in the Oberlin community. Student sprawl into the Oberlin community
increases the number of high-turnover rental properties half
of the housing stock in Oberlin is now renter-occupied and
its much more profitable to stuff four students into a single-family
house at $300 a month than one family at $600 a month. Additionally,
students demand less of their housing stock in terms of quality,
and so many landlords put little in the way of maintenance into
their student-rented properties, further driving down property values
in student-occupied neighborhoods. For Oberlin residents, students
are lousy neighbors in more ways than just the rusty bikes and beer
cans on the lawns.
Putting more students back into the dorms is better for the Oberlin
community as a whole in the long run. However, for students to accept
this, the College must consider broadening the kinds of on-campus
options to include more independent settings. Opening up a refurbished
Firelands and other alternative residencies is a great start. Just
as needed is implementation of further measures to assure that rising
juniors who are denied off-campus housing requests get the best
possible options for living arrangements.
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