With the end of junior year finishing up many juniors are becoming more anxious about being released off campus. Some people are even beginning to wonder if there will even be another wave of rising seniors released or if the school intends to hold hostage those seniors who wish to live at the beach.
Over the past few years the beach situation has become more complicated than it ever needed to be. A random lottery that lets students off campus leads to more and more students finding out that they will not be allowed to live off campus. Many students have envisioned their four years at Fairfield culminating in a year of living at the beach, but it appears the university has other plans. Fairfield has begun to crush these college dreams and has let fewer and fewer students off campus. As a result, beach house leases are not being signed, The Mirror is flooded with beach house ads, and everyone is waiting to find out what Fairfield intends to do.
Those who are lucky enough to live within an arbitrary commuter status distance can try their luck switching to commuter status so they can live at the beach, but for the majority of students this is not an option. So they are left to roll the dice. Will they be allowed to enjoy their senior year or will they spend it pissed off that instead of being a two minute walk from The Grape, they are hunting down cabs like freshmen?
Beach houses are, however, just one of the points of contention between current student desires and the administration’s goal to change the image of the school. Through building projects, new parking rules, the beach, Res-Life decisions, and the constant disregard for student voices, the administration has made it clear that it cares more about people’s perceptions of the school than about the satisfaction of current students. Fairfield has begun to take students’ visions of college life and turn them upside down, repackaged and delivered neatly with a bow to perspective students on tours with mom and dad.
EVEN AFTER ALL OF THAT I STILL LOVE FAIRFIELD.
Now that I have said all of that, I do not want it to be assumed that I do not love Fairfield. I bleed Stag red. I will never regret my decision to come to Fairfield or the path I have walked since arriving. But the fact that I enjoy Fairfield and highly recommend it for anyone looking at the school, does not mean that there aren’t problems. These problems are mainly for students who came to Fairfield when the beach was still a reality and not something that only a few hundred students are lucky enough to be released too.
The University’s new dorm project, along with the entire five-year plan, make it clear that the beach will soon die. In fact, I would move my anticipated expiration date of the beach up from ten years to within the next five. However, at the end of the day the administration does not make the school. The students and the faculty with whom you interact on a daily basis do, and no matter how much the administration attempts to change Fairfield it will be the students who still have the last say on what Fairfield is. Beach or no Beach.
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