It seems the administration has lost its way. This year, we have witnessed an unprecedented change in student life at Notre Dame. The Dillon Pep Rally: canceled. The Alumni Wake: canceled. The Fisher Zoo: canceled. And to be sure, something as controversial as the Keenan Revue is next on the list of things to go (although if this year is any indication, it will just become more and more subdued until it is hardly recognizable).
Student life, and more specifically, dorm life, is one of the great things that sets Notre Dame apart as an institution, and a big reason why so many alumni are attached to this place: the phenomenal experience they had as undergraduates. But in their chase after the Ivy League, and ever higher rankings in U.S. News, the administration seems to have forgotten this important aspect of Notre Dame. We are not Harvard or Yale, we're better, and the reason is that at Notre Dame, there is more to life than just great academics. But with the way things are going, it seems Fr. Poorman and the rest of ResLife's ideal campus would be dorm rooms housing students with their noses in their books, never seeing one another, much less socializing. That's not the Notre Dame that I wanted to go to when I applied here.
Hand in hand with dorm life goes dorm tradition, without which, the dorms are just buildings like they are at most other schools, some of them with flat screen TV's (Duncan), and others with tap water that is unsafe to drink (Fisher). All of those events that have been canceled this year are an enormous part of that tradition, a part of which you remember fondly years from now. When you take away that tradition, you take away what makes student life here great. The saying "tradition never graduates," is true. Tradition just gets banned by ResLife.
Trey Griffith
sophomore
Fisher
Feb. 9
