Oracle Online

Unfortunately, it became immediately apparent after I began my schooling here that this was a lie. The campus empties out on weekends. The rare student who ventures out of his or her dorm room from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening beholds a social wasteland, devoid of almost all signs of human residency.

That’s why student communities that are cohesive should be valued and respected, even if they seem a little strange to the outside observer. Such unusual social entities need to be allowed to flourish in their own way in order to gradually improve the student atmosphere on campus overall.

I speak in particular of the loose group of students that has taken to congregating late into the night in the Sorin lobby.

They are known among themselves as the Sorin “bums,” and elsewhere among the student body as the Sorin orphans. These young Hamline residents and commuters spend time after dinner and late into the night playing Guitar Hero, listening to music, talking, and generally enjoying spending time with one another on campus. They also stage regular epic battles with lightsabers, nerf weaponry and snowballs.

Our campus needs more of this. Most students should know by now that college is not just about the classes, essays and exams.

What many people here on campus fail to realize is that the experience isn’t just organizations on campus or resume-padding events, either. College life should also be about fellowship of students, meeting people you ordinarily wouldn’t, and the friendships developed during these short years here.

I don’t claim to know everyone’s personal reasons for coming to Hamline. But I personally came here for the size of the population and all that that entails-a community of students with a strong sense of identity. That is lacking here, and that is a problem that we as the living idea of Hamline need to wake up to.

Living in a dormitory or in one of the nearby apartments should have more going for it than just an easy walk to class, or escaping the overprotective grasp of parents. Living here would give shallow satisfaction if that were true.

What these Sorin bums, or orphans, have done is create a community out of nothing that was there before except the lounge itself. More students could stand to live by their example, and become more invested in the social aspect of life on campus. If it weren’t for that, there would be little reason to be a student here at Hamline over any other liberal arts college.

Yet there remain students who, for reasons of their own, dislike the bums. They claim that their presence makes it impossible to study in the Sorin lobby, or that they are too noisy late at night. I can’t speak to their noise level, except that they have already discussed the matter as a group and have begun hushing up after quiet hours. I can respond to the study lounge argument, though. I have discussed the matter with several of the bums and have, myself, joined them in the lounge on numerous evenings.

Recently, a new flat screen TV with an integrated DVD player was added to the Sorin lobby to replace the old one. One would think that Hamline wouldn’t add such a fine piece of entertainment technology to a lounge dedicated to quiet study.

That’s because the Sorin lobby is a social place, not a lounge for silent homework. There are alternative places for the night owls of academia to analyze texts or memorize facts.

Sorin’s first floor is the one place on campus designed for student use that is open 24 hours a day. If a community of residents and commuters wants to use it on their free time, I say they should. They represent a diverse, eclectic group of people from Hamline, and the fact that they’ve bonded together into such a tight-knit and accepting group is a great thing for the college experience in generalčas well as the atmosphere of a campus that is supposed to foster a sense of identity and unity.