Photo by Tzav Harrel ‘24 - Delles Common Room
By Annabelle Mackson ’23
Human Resources Coordinator & Staff Writer
With campus life returning to relative normalcy in the fall semester of 2021, it’s becoming clear that party culture at Mount Holyoke has changed dramatically compared to before the pandemic.
Current juniors and seniors likely remember the last party they went to before the fateful day in early March 2020 when college students across the country were sent home indefinitely due to the spread of COVID-19. This was back when parties had no social distancing or mask restrictions, when the only risk was a visit from campus police — or maybe, in serious cases, alcohol poisoning.
To be frank, I am not a party person, nor have I ever been, but I have seen and felt the shift in how parties are conducted at MHC since the entire student body was allowed back on campus. I only attended a couple of parties before lockdown, and I cannot recall any major complaints from residents concerning the conduct of partygoers. This has not been the case in the 2021-2022 school year — a lot of major parties have had some sort of mishap associated with them, and many of these minor disasters have a singular source in common.
The majority of parties at Mount Holyoke are held in either Mandelle or Rockefeller Halls, and it’s fairly common for complaints to arise from the residents concerning the conduct of the partygoers, particularly with their lack of appropriate cleanup. If Mount Holyoke students can acquire alcohol and drugs underage, they should also be able to clean up after themselves. As a resident of the Delles, I’ve heard the noise of parties well into the wee hours of the morning — and, while I don’t frequent the common rooms enough to notice, large amounts of trash, personal items and empty liquor bottles have been left outside and were cleaned up months after the fact. Sometimes, they even needed to be thrown away by Facilities Management.
This blatant disrespect for the residents of Mandelle and Rockefeller Halls in particular is made worse by the fact that Rockefeller Hall is home to three of the four Mount Holyoke Living Learning Communities dedicated to students of color: Gloria Anzaldúa, Mi Gente and Shirley Chisholm.
According to a DataUSA study, 47.8 percent of the students at Mount Holyoke are white. At a predominantly white institution like Mount Holyoke, places where people of color can feel comfortable to be themselves is a necessity, and the Rockies are meant to be one of those places. Unfortunately, the importance of this necessity is often overlooked, especially by rowdy white students who wish to party in these persons of color-occupied spaces.
“This disregard for the residents of the party dorms, whether they actually attend the parties or not, is a problem in and of itself, but it becomes infinitely worse when planners and attendants alike throw all basic decency behind and leave the extensive post-party cleanup to those aforementioned residents while they stumble back to their dorms in ignorant bliss. ”
Students may see the Rockies as a convenient location for parties, since they’re centrally located and boast the same sunrooms as the Delles without the walk across the bridge at Lower Lake, but its designation as a person of color space is overlooked in the search for a good time. This disregard for the residents of the party dorms, whether they actually attend the parties or not, is a problem in and of itself, but it becomes infinitely worse when planners and attendants alike throw all basic decency behind and leave the extensive post-party cleanup to those aforementioned residents while they stumble back to their dorms in ignorant bliss.
“[The Rockies] should be our space to throw parties for ourselves,” a first-year resident of the South Rockies told me. This sentiment has been echoed by many students on their personal social media accounts following a party that left at least one wing of the Rockies’ sun and common rooms trashed. The student added that “a lot of POC probably did not feel comfortable” with a majority-white group of students holding a party in their dorm. While the student stated that they did not attend the party in question, they would have felt uncomfortable with the situation had they been there. Using a space that doesn’t belong to you and leaving trash in it is rude and inexcusable under normal circumstances, but these actions are made even more reprehensible given the Rockies’ dedication as a safe residence for students of color.
When I asked the student their thoughts on the future of parties in the Rockies, their prediction was both disappointing and realistic. “I feel like it just would happen again because the people here just don’t care sometimes,” they said. “I just feel like some people are just straight up ignorant and they’re just going to do it anyway.”
People should care. The people who trashed the Rockies that one weekend should care, because the residents of the Rockies cared.
“I know one of my friends was one actually cleaning it up,” the first-year said. “I felt second hand aggravation for her because I know she was very frustrated.” That person shouldn’t have to be frustrated, or spend her weekend morning cleaning up the mess from a group of people that didn’t treat another’s home with the courtesy I am sure they expect in theirs.
I am white, and I have the same privilege as the hosts of this party. Frankly it is the bare minimum for us as white people to respect the spaces dedicated to people of color on this campus and beyond. At Mount Holyoke, we have both the knowledge and ability to improve, and it’s beyond overdue for us to actually do so.