Author: Berit Anderson
The ticket system adopted for last Saturday’s dance has been the subject of many student complaints, but from what I can tell, those doing all the whining might just be griping for griping’s sake.
Personally, I have never been much of one for formals. All the fussing over dresses, hair, makeup and shoes makes me a little stressed out-so I wasn’t planning on attending this weekend. Still, when I was spontaneously handed a ticket on Saturday night, I decided to check it out even though I was wearing jeans and flip flops and wasn’t carrying my Oxy ID. I was met at the door by an overbearing Assistant Director of Student Life, Kenna Cotrill, who demanded to know where I lived and why it was that I hadn’t brought my card. Hadn’t I read the small print on my ticket and the wealth of e-mails supplied to the Oxy community detailing dance protocol? I felt like I was facing my angry mother after failing to clean my room for the umpteenth time.
Despite the stiff security, I eventually talked my way into the sweating mass of testosterone fueled face-sucking. The reason for such an affronting greeting? The Marketplace has an occupancy capacity of just seven hundred people and in order to use the space this year, Programming Board and RHA were required to issue tickets as a means of capping the event attendance within a safe range.
Yes, it is true that tickets are more difficult for students to deal with than the previous alternative we’ve enjoyed. One had to line up in the quad at lunch to get a ticket this year. Then they had to keep track of said ticket for three days to make sure that they would actually be admitted. I have a novel idea to help with this: Use a pushpin. They are cheap, and easy to use. Simply press said ticket to a wall and apply pressure. I use them frequently.
It could also be argued that tickets for last weekend’s winter fete weren’t available in the Cooler during Friday @ 5 as promised. All the pre-dance tickets were given out too quickly in the quad. Just think of this as a lesson for real life. Tickets for events are sometimes sold out before the actual event itself. Concerts are good examples.
Parties at the Claremont Colleges, where I spent my first year of college, frequently regulate the number of students in attendance by using tickets. They even sometimes charge money for them. I imagine other schools might do the same thing. The ticket system that Programming Board used this past weekend is no different, so let’s try not to set ourselves apart as the whiners of Southern California academia.
Berit Anderson is a junior DWA major . She can be reached at banderson@oxy.edu.
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