by Katie Kenerly
Executive Staff
Many would agree that Comprehensive Exams, and the celebrations that follow, are a Sewanee tradition as sacred as the Order of the Gownsmen or not stepping on the seal. Finishing your comp marks the completion of one’s Sewanee education and being able to celebrate with friends and professors afterwards has always been a given; that is, until the administration decided to crack down on post-comp celebrations outside of the academic buildings. Gone are the days of greeting your comped friends outside of the library with silly string and airplane bottles of booze, and Sewanee is beginning to seem more and more like a police state.
While on the one hand this new administrative decision makes sense, most students would agree that it ultimately hurts more than it helps. Litter and public displays of alcohol were cited as the forces driving this change, which is all well and good. The issue, however, arises when students are prevented by police officers from congregating to congratulate their friends on such a momentous achievement; the anticlimax is, of course, even more disappointing for those who have just finished the exam.
Of course no one is advocating public displays of alcohol when complaining about the great Comp Crackdown of 2014. The issue is that our friends have just taken the biggest test of their lives, and no one is allowed to celebrate with them upon its completion. I watched my friend be written up by a police officer moments after stepping out of the exam. In my opinion, there is no justice in this. Let us celebrate, with or without alcohol. Do not take away our traditions and detract from Sewanee’s amazing sense of community.