By Briana Keenan
News Editor
It’s Friday on campus. You’re a Lion at The College of New Jersey, and you just finished your final class of the day. You’re eager to stay on campus for the weekend and finish some lingering assignments at the library, but also, have some fun.
Except, campus is eerily quiet.
The dining hall doesn’t open until 10 a.m. tomorrow, which does not help your hunger considering you wake up at 8 a.m. every day. Campus Town is a far walking distance from your dorm, and there are no events in any organizations that can fill the time. An early library start is impossible since it opens at 11 a.m.
This lack of activity has led the campus community to debate whether or not the College is a “suitcase school.” The term defines a college campus where students leave for the weekends and are only on campus for their academic classes. At the College, students and staff alike have mixed views on whether or not it falls under this term based on who leaves and what activities are available.
According to the College’s website, 85-95% of first-year students live on campus, but how many of those students choose to leave for the weekend when not on a break?
“People say there’s nothing to do because everyone leaves, but there’s nothing to do because everyone leaves,” said Tiernan Blankstein, a freshman political science and sociology double major.
On the Monday of every week, the campus community receives an email from thisweek@involvement.tcnj.edu entitled, “This Week at TCNJ.” In this email, events, general interest meetings, fundraisers, athletic games and leadership opportunities are displayed and students can read through them to decide if they want to attend any of them throughout the week.
However, many of the events listed in the email only take place during the academic workweek. In the email that was sent out for the week of Nov. 27, 37 events were listed, and only 14 of them were scheduled for over the weekend, Friday through Sunday.
Eight of those 14 events are sports games, and the total 14 events is only 38% of those scheduled, showing a low number of scheduled events for the weekend in comparison to the school week.
“Week Two [of being at the College] I was like, ‘If people stay on campus, we wouldn’t have this issue,’” Blankstein said. “There are events, but they’re on random Wednesdays.”
Another student agreed with Blankstein’s comments, and said that students are leaving campus because there is a lack of weekend events.
“There’s not a lot of activity on the weekends because there’s no frat houses on campus,” said Cassie Updegraff, a freshman elementary education and psychology double major. “There’s no parties, so people mainly just go to Rutgers or they just go home.”
The Atrium at Eickoff, which is the College’s dining hall, has abbreviated hours on the weekend, according to the hours on the Dining Services website. Monday through Thursday, the dining hall is open from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. During the weekend, it closes at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and opens at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, the website says.
“Dining places staying open later would probably benefit the student body more,” said Breanna Percy, a sophomore industrial/organizational psychology major.
The website also shows that the College’s Fresh Pride Cafe, Education Cafe, STEM Forum Cafe, Lions Den and 1855 Room are all closed on the weekend, limiting students’ options of where they can get food on campus.
A photo of the Lions Den in the Brower Student Center on Saturday, Dec. 2. During the week, students fill these tables with friends to eat and do work, but during the weekends, everything is dark and locked up. (Photo Courtesy of Briana Keenan).
The Library Cafe has abbreviated hours during the weekend too, just as the library itself does. The hours on Saturday at 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. and the hours on Sunday are 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. From Monday through Friday, the cafe opens at 7:30 a.m, the website says.
At the start of the semester, Interim President Michael Bernstein attended a Student Government (SG) general body meeting to introduce himself and discuss his visions for his time in this role.
“Given my own experiences at other institutions, I thought, maybe, I could give some value as a member of the leadership team,” he said.
At this meeting, members were able to ask him questions through a survey and several topics came up, including how to improve the quality of student life on campus.
He said that several aspects—including dorms, dining, co-curricular activities and facilities–need to be analyzed in order to improve student life on campus, but that other factors outside of that need to be taken care of first, such as finances.
“I’d love to do all these things right now, and I can’t,” Bernstein said.
Dave Conner, the director of Student Life for the College, does not think the College is a suitcase school.
“This is a term I’ve heard used about TCNJ since I started working here in 2007 and likely even before that,” he said. “I don’t have data on how often students go home, but it’s not all that often.”
He does not think that more weekend activities are needed and that students can be engaged in several different events.
“In the first 12 weeks of classes this semester alone, there have been 52 large scale events advertised [through thisweek@involvement.tcnj.edu] alone,” he said. “Then, there are just casual or social gatherings among friends.”
The ratio of the number of events on weekdays in comparison to the number on weekends is unknown.
Overall, there are mixed thoughts on whether or not the College truly falls under the term, “suitcase school.” However, a common theme is that there are ways to make the weekends on campus more enjoyable for the student experience.
“We have to always make the case for why we’re the best place to go and not others,” Bernstein said.
