Taking a look back

Two weekends ago was Drury’s annual alumni weekend. Over the course of the weekend there were several different events for different class years and organizations on campus. Drury alumni were celebrated for many different reasons. Some of them have been alums for fifty years or more and they are now a part of Drury’s “Golden Circle”. Others haven’t been alums for long, but no matter the length of time it’s been since their graduation day all the alumni I met seemed to have vivid memories of their college days at Drury.
It seems as though over the past year I have spent a lot of times communicating with Drury alumni. The reason I have is because I work at the Drury Alumni Office and I am alumnae relations for my sorority. I have been trying over the past year to keep alumni informed and help them maintain as much of an involvement as they desire. Since I have spent so much time talking to alumni I thought I knew what alumni weekend would be like. However, I did not realize the type of sentiment the campus itself holds or how much the alumni being in the presence of each other contributes to the memories they recall.
Working at the Alumni Office I got to help with a lot of the behind the scenes preparation for the events, but the best part of the weekend for me was the brunch for my sorority. Tri Deltas from 1944-1997 came, looked at old pictures, ate, shared stories, sang, and had a blast together. I had no idea that I could feel so bonded to these women who went to the same school as me many years before I was even born. A lot of their memories are not much different than the ones I have already created. Times have changed but a lot of the good things stay the same.

Here are the links to the two police officers running for Greene County Sheriff:
http://www.jimarnott.com/
http://www.mikeramonforsheriff.com/

This is the link to The Mirror if you want to read the stories concerning boys bid day:
http://www.drurymirror.com/

Whether you vote or not... the results affect you

The original purpose of this blog was for me to be able to write about whatever “extra” things there are going on at Drury (“extra” meaning non-academic). I thought it would be an easy outlet for me to talk about things going on right in front of me and it is a topic relevant to my life. Basically, I thought it would be easy for me to write about. However it is hard to talk about the extras at Drury without mentioning the recent scrutiny that Drury’s Greek life has recently been under.
Since one of Drury’s freshman was sent to the hospital and put into a coma from alcohol poisoning Drury has been all over the news. Students were advised to say “no comment” to any news reporter if asked any questions concerning the incident. Drury’s Greek system was associated with this party and has been under a lot of stress worrying about the health condition of the freshman boy and the possible consequences they could face as a result of the incident.
If you picked up The Mirror this past Wednesday you got to see an arrangement of articles titled: “Off-Campus Party Under Scrutiny,” “Sober at the quad- Pressure from law enforcement forces parties off DU campus," and ”Greeks Must Act.” I’m not going to go in to exactly what the articles said, you can read them yourselves, but many believe that if parties would have been allowed on campus that day it would have not gotten so out of hand. As a Drury student I have always felt safe on campus. It seems as though parties are kept under control by security and the police that Drury hire, but on this year’s boy’s bid day people felt the pressure to leave campus.
Jim Arnott is one of the candidates running for sheriff this year and part of his campaign is to stop underage drinking. This year Drury’s fraternity boy’s bid day was apparently part of his campaign. He was the one that threatened to give out MIPs on boy’s bid day and as a result students left campus. I am not saying he is to blame for a student’s alcohol poisoning; my point is his decision to target boy’s bid day as a part of his campaign affected Drury students. Most of college students are of voting age, however many do not actually vote. This story proves that politics does affect us even if we don’t think it does. I’m not going to tell anyone to vote, but I do think people should be informed.

If you’re interested here are some cites to help you better understand the situation and decide how you want to vote.