Wesleyan students made headlines after their senior cocktail celebration got out of hand.
Students were kicked out of the Connecticut Science Center two hours after their senior cocktail event began last week.
One student who was there described the scene when everyone got kicked out.
"We were having this pretty rowdy dance party and people were spilling drinks everywhere," the Wesleyan senior told us. "Suddenly, they turned all the lights on and told us to get out."
The campus blog also reported that students were projectile vomiting on the stairs. It was rumored that one drunken reveler climbed up onto the dinosaur exhibit:
One senior questioned the choice of venue for this year's senior cocktails: the Science Center's "Liquid Lounge."
"I have friends who have worked there and said that they had to kick people in their 30's out for climbing on exhibits," the student, who also wished to be anonymous, told us. "What did they expect from some college seniors?"
Here are a series of tweets from a student who was disgusted by the turn of events:
And the ambivalent views of some other students:
The school's senior cocktails have a long history of becoming too rowdy for the authorities' liking.
"Wesleyan has a senior cocktail problem," one '09 alumnus told us. "I remember my year, we were at a banquet hall, and someone just takes out a butter knife and starts cutting lines of cocaine."
The alumnus cited many incidents where things got too wild:
- December 2007: December Senior Cocktails were cancelled "due to irresponsible behavior at the first cocktails event of the academic year," The Wesleyan Argus reported in Nov. 2007. During the first cocktails in October 2007, students reportedly verbally abused bus drivers transporting them to the venue and the head of the bus company was allegedly physically assaulted.
- September 2008: The ban on Senior Cocktails didn't last long. By September 2008, The Wesleyan Argus was reporting the tradition was back and better than ever. The paper printed this announcement from the senior class officers:
FASTER.
STRONGER.
NO DRINK TICKETS.
WAY F-ING CHEAPER.
-The senior class officers
- November 2008: The Class of 2009 brought some good news to the tradition of Senior Cocktails. The class successfully hosted an "incident free evening" in Nov. 2008, The Wesleyan Argus reported at the time. “Wesleyan students are not generally destructive or riotous," Senior Class President Ravid Chowdhury told the Argus. "We just party harder and better than everyone else.”
- January 2010: Senior Cocktails are so important to Wesleyan students, there was a wave of negative backlash after some students proposed sending the cocktails budget to Haiti relief efforts, The Wesleyan Argus reported at the time. Some students thought the proposal "makes Senior Cocks appear frivolous" and others stated "the fact that the proposal was submitted indicates that the senior class officers (who conceived of the idea in the first place) think Senior Cocks is just about drinking, when, in fact, it is also about class bonding."
The alumnus told us his theory on why the tradition is still out of control.
"It's a smaller school, so the incidents usually aren't widely publicized," he told us. "After a year or two, everyone forgets this s--- happened. Regardless of GPA, everyone's an idiot when they're drunk."
The university told us in a statement that it apologized to the Connecticut Science Center and is "deeply disappointed by the problematic behavior." The school is also working with seniors to reevaluate plans for future events.
A Wesleyan senior told us that a few reckless people ruined the event for everyone else.
"It was a fun event, and a fun premise," the student told us. "The majority of people just were eating snacks, drinking wine, talking with their friends, and interacting with exhibits. We got kicked out because of the actions of a couple of individuals."
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