In an All-School Meeting last spring, Head of School John Palfrey discussed the topic of fun at Andover. He stressed the importance of preserving both “fun” and “family friendliness” on campus. He stated that we “should lean into these ‘family values’ and make them our ‘fun.’ ”
Lately, the litness of weekend events has dropped significantly. After enduring the “Call Your Parents Marathon,” “Seven Hours of Meditation and Mindfulness,” and the “30th Weekly S’mores Munch,” the morale of the student body has dropped severely. Despite the Head of School’s acknowledgment of the recent fun deficit at Andover, I came out of the meeting the same way I entered: deeply disappointed and sexually frustrated. I was especially disappointed by the Head of School’s failure to explicitly address the extremely jarring event that took place last weekend in Susie’s:
In response to the recent lack of bagels in Commons, a herd of my peers stormed the Den – jeering, chanting, and throwing their thorny limbs with abandon. The wild storm of students sparked sudden concern among the faculty who were already at the scene (having more fun than all of the students combined). My peers then tried to dance out their emotions. But alas! The faculty members immediately threw all of their garlic at the students, and thrusted their hand-carved crosses into the air. Our path to fun has been laden with adversity, but we must persevere.
Instead of seeing this as a petty complaint with no solution, you should see it as the opposite: We have a great opportunity to revisit the very definition of fun, and how the Weekender operates. Let’s make this change together.
