The Students’ Association wrapped up ACDay1 on Sept. 6 with a free concert that looked like a scene straight out of Coachella, with drunken debauchery, a bra being tossed, crowd surfing, water spraying from plastic bottles and chants of “flip cup,” “vodka,” and even the social media phenomenon, “d*cks out for Harambe,” all before the opening act, Walk Off the Earth took the stage.
One student even told an on-duty Times reporter, “Don’t worry, we’ll act like we’re sober.”
The fact that many of those taking part in the antics were wearing Algonquin Residence shirts should be no surprise as this kind of behaviour is common during the first week of post secondary for students living in residence. However, Algonquin’s residence has a strict no alcohol policy enacted for the first week that aims to prevent this kind of thing from happening.
“A lot of students have big expectations that they’ll be consuming a lot of alcohol,” said Brandon Jodoin, a community advisor for the Algonquin Residence. “It sets the tone early that they don’t have to be relying on that.”
According to Jodoin, this policy is actually quite common in residences on college and university campuses across North America, however, he is unsure of how long Algonquin has had it.
He also added that the punishment for breaking this rule is typically not very harsh despite the fact that many students do in fact drink alcohol in the residence.
“We kind of educate them on what the issue is with drinking when they’re not supposed to. More so, it’s an opportunity to mitigate the amount of incidents we deal with in the week,” said Jodoin.
“We still have students who drink a lot of alcohol, but with them, those are the students we deal with a little more strictly. If it’s a one-time thing, it’s just sort of letting them know why we have the dry week, why we feel it would be good for them to interact with students while they’re sober.”
Overall though, Jodoin feels this policy is effective in preventing underage students from partaking in wild frosh week activities.
“We have a large number of 17, 18 year olds, so with them, we don’t necessarily want that environment to be the first thing they’re exposed to when entering college.”
Despite best efforts, the ACDay1 concert is proof that students are exposed to the post secondary party culture, dry week or not.
Algonquin security did not reply to our request for a breakdown of the 2015/2016 incidents for the month of September, however, the Algonquin College website indicates that the residence experienced a total of 551 incidents during the 2015/2016 school year. A 2013 report also shows that the residence has continually experienced the highest amount of incidents during the month of September from 2009 through 2013.
The SA also did not respond to request for comment regarding the Walk Off the Earth Show and whether or not the incidents would impact future events.