Is the party scene here at Ursinus on the decline? As compared to previous years, I would say that things have definitely changed regarding the school’s weekend social scene. In my opinion, the biggest contributing factor to this is the almost two years of Covid protocols that completely altered the way we had to interact with one another. During my freshman year the 2020-2021 school year), Ursinus’ restrictions wouldn’t even allow a gathering in a room to exceed double its occupancy, meaning that no more than four people could be in a dorm room that housed two people. It is safe to say that a diminished party scene during this time period wasn’t exactly a surprise given the fact that there was a global pandemic taking place. However, has the party scene really returned to normal?
I can remember having conversations with friends of mine who have since graduated and they would tell me stories of how before the pandemic, a Thursday night here at Ursinus would mean that Reimert Hall was going to be packed full of students as if it were a Saturday night. That is something that I can say I have never seen in my almost four years here at Ursinus and it is certainly something that I do not expect to see in my remaining three months here. Nowadays, it seems like most people do their own thing and party amongst themselves within their own friend groups at their own suites and or houses. Now I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that during the warmer months of last semester, the courtyard of Reimert Hall was typically filled with people until around 2am. Especially with the winter weather, the courtyard is a ghost town on Friday nights with minimal action on Saturdays, and restrictions, such as Reimert’s hosting timeframe reduced from 2am to 1am in autumn 2022.
When asked about his events experience at Ursinus, Sigma Pi Chapter President Mark Yilanjian ’24 said “The first year and a half wasn’t the best because of Covid restrictions, but over the past two years it has slowly recovered and seems to be on a slow rise.”
Restrictions, especially following unsafe events occurring within the last year, have been put in place to ensure student safety. There were increased reports of students jaywalking across Main Street, so much so that the Collegeville Police began to get involved. There were also several illegal speakeasies, organized under the March 2023 “Bear Crawl”. While it is acknowledged that these precautions are necessary for the safety of the student body, it would seem that some students feel that there are restrictions that are unnecessary. For example, “water pong” was banned from all student events under the assumption that it was promoting binge-drinking, even though no alcohol was involved in playing the game.
Pi Omega Delta, a gender neutral fraternity part of the “Delta Fam” and who often hosts in Todd House, commented as a collective. “The party scene at Ursinus has wavered [in] the last few years. This is due to multiple factors however, we believe the pandemic was the greatest antagonist. Now, it’s up to host organizations to put in a little more work to make parties more advertised and seem more exciting. There’s huge potential with the ability to host parties on Main street and each house needs to be able to accommodate for a larger variety of people. We can’t simply hope people will show up from the occasional Instagram posts. Our organization has noticed an uptick of partygoers when we put in more effort to the party with providing fun food and drinks, exciting themes, and increasing the mediums of advertisement. With just a little more effort we all will see a rejuvenation to parties at Ursinus.” As an example, Pi Omega Delta advertised their latest full moon party via posters across campus.
Combining these safety efforts and attempts to draw more excitement towards student events will hopefully engage students across campus to come together and celebrate the weekend.