While Alumni Weekend is a time of celebration for alumni, students and staff, this most recent weekend also entailed a time of stress and violation for some students. Multiple students have come forward with reports of alumni ignoring their boundaries and barging into residence halls, greek life houses and individual dorm rooms.
Eva Schwartz ‘26, Brown Hall resident, details her experiences interacting with alumni this weekend. “There were a few forty-something-year-old ladies wandering around my floor and I could hear them outside. They were very clearly alumni and I heard them get closer to my room and one of them said something along the lines of ‘this was my dorm and this one next to it was my friends dorm.’ They knocked on my next door neighbors’ door and I’m not sure whether they answered it or not. Next thing I knew, they opened my door and I gave them a weird look and shut it. I’m sure that it was some kind of mix up, but I still think that it was very disrespectful because these are in fact no longer their dorms and different people live here now.”
Faculty Advisor for Cardinal Key Jess Deemer and Cardinal Key Member Johnny Veglia ‘24 both detailed how during their alumni tours, various alumni asked if they could go into their old residence halls.
Veglia reflected on his training for Cardinal Key saying, “we’re specifically instructed to never allow any alumni to go into any residence halls.”
Carly Langschultz ‘25, resident of the Phi Sigma Sigma house, recounted her experience this weekend. “I really love that our alumni are always excited to come back to campus, it’s awesome that we get to meet them and share stories with them. However, as a person who can become pretty anxious in a new living situation, it felt pretty uncomfortable having them and their children be so in my space, especially so early on in the semester. I was concerned all day that someone would knock on my door as I knew they were discussing trying to go into people’s rooms.”
A student that would prefer to remain anonymous detailed their experience this weekend and the disrespect of various alumni in their on-campus place of residence. “We let alumni come and look around, and after they left, we realized they left their bottles of alcohol in our bathroom. We have people under 21 living there, so if we didn’t realize, we could’ve gotten in trouble, which isn’t great considering we did them a favor to begin with.”
The alleged entitlement that alumni felt they had, culminated into their treatment of places of residence for all students across campus this weekend, leaving some students feeling violated and alarmed at the ease of alumni entering residence halls, as well as their behavior when invited into homes on campus.
Hey current students, shut up. One day you’ll want to go back and visit the places where you made your memories. Muhlenberg doesn’t belong to you anymore than it does the alums.
Well, honestly, it seems like maybe they weren’t the best visitors – but sounds more like the entitled ones are the current students. It is one weekend in your time there – don’t forget this when you come back to visit 20 years later. You WILL do the same thing. Trust me – it has been going on for years.