Culture

No More Queen's Homecoming

by mtippett | November 18, 2008 at 10:57 am

646 views | 6 Recommendations | 5 comments

Queen's homecoming has legendary status among Ontario high school and University students. As a Queen's Alumni I can testify that it is a great party. This year the police arrested 54 people and apparently that was enough to get the event cancelled. I just got this email from the school.

As many of you know, Homecoming weekend for the past 4 years has been the occasion of a large and growing unsanctioned student gathering on Aberdeen Street – a small street located off campus in the student village. Numbers associated with this event have ranged from 5,000 to 10,000. This year’s event was the largest yet and resulted in an unprecedented number of police charges, arrests, violent incidents and injuries.
Since 2005, the University community, including faculty, staff, students and alumni, have worked in collaboration with City of Kingston officials and law enforcement agencies in an effort to contain this volatile situation. Despite our best efforts, the situation has worsened. The unsanctioned gathering has come to be seen by many as a “tradition” whose timing is associated with Queen’s Homecoming.

Concerns for safety have been mounting steadily and are now at a critical point. After broad consultation with faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and groups who comprise the Queen’s family, the Town/Gown Aberdeen working group, the Police, the hospitals, Fire and Rescue and legal experts, there is broad agreement that a new course of action is required.

I have therefore reached a very difficult decision: the University will not be hosting its Fall Homecoming Weekend for a minimum period of 2 years, beginning with the Homecoming of Fall 2009.

Is the school over-reacting? Was it really that out of hand? If you were there let us know.

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Chris Rapson (not verified)

at 17:19 on November 18th, 2008

Wow. I was there when the Aberdeen Street Party was born in Fall 2001 and again for the second one in 2002. It was awesome. I remember seeing lots of cops, a burning couch and thousands of people spilling out of almost every house onto the street.

In 2004, a car got flipped and lit on fire, and the event made national news. I think it was Fall 2005 when the University spent about $80,000 hosting a concert on campus to draw the crowds away from Aberdeen, but the crowd from the concert just descended upon Aberdeen en masse when the show ended at 11pm. That was the last I had heard about it until now, but it looks like the Aberdeen Street Party has raged on, despite all the efforts to control and/or prevent it.

The thing is that Queen's Homecoming now has three parts to it: the football game (attended by students and alumni), the university-sanctioned events (attended mostly by the old folks), and the Aberdeen Street Party (attended by students, alumni and visitors of all ages). It sounds like the university administration is cancelling their sanctioned events, but are they also cancelling the football season or eliminating home games for the next two years? Otherwise, my guess is that the weekend of the first home game of the season will be again dubbed as Homecoming, and there's a very good chance that the Aberdeen Street Party will giv'er again! I know students will still want to party, and I doubt very much that Kingston will refuse the economic stimulus of alumni and others coming to Kingston for a weekend of spending their money in hotels, restaurants, bars, the LCBO, and the Beer Store.

It would probably require an extreme police presence to shut this now-traditional gong show down, and it may even require changes to Kingston's bylaws to make it effectively illegal to drink outside, even on private property. On another note, this story makes me wonder, "Hey Western, who's the Real Canadian Party School NOW?"

Paschen

at 07:34 on November 19th, 2008

In my humble opinion, yes they are over reacting and should not cancel such event, maybe change is or could be needed, however cancelling it, sounds rather drastic.

kara f (not verified)

at 09:46 on November 23rd, 2008

As a Queen's alumni I am definitly saddened by the school's decision to cancel homecoming for the next two years. Queen's pride is something that unites past and present students and it is a very important part of the school. Queen's is known globally for its homecoming weekend. When I was in New Zealand last year the Otago press even covered the story of Queen's homecoming. This is something that separates us from other universities in the province. I think that the school's decision to have a 'homecoming -styled reunion' in May is rediculous. The aberdeen street party is a tradition; a tradition that has even separated itself from the football game and other aspects of homecoming. The street party will ensue no matter what the University does to try to stop it.

Gretchen (not verified)

at 10:43 on November 27th, 2008

No, it's not an overreaction, but it probably won't work. I grew up in Kingston and attended my fair share of student parties, and returned recently to get a graduate degree. I was shocked by how much more disruptive and destructive the routine--almost nightly--behaviour of the students is than it was in the eighties or even the nineties.

Part of the problem is that Queen's has increased its enrolment without providing a physical place for all those students. The student ghetto is no longer just Earl street and its surrounding area, but now is all of the downtown area. Here is some of what I've witnessed on trips to Kingston in the past few years:

-Students jumping on the hoods, roofs, and windshields of parked cars

-Students writing graffiti on the doors, stairs, and porches of private houses

-Students bringing their stereo speakers outside to play loud music which they then shout over in the wee hours of the morning

-Students vomiting into private flower beds

-Students breaking beer bottles onto city streets

Understand, I'm not talking about the Aberdeen party--I'm talking about just regular weeknights. I've routinely been waked up at three a.m. by drunken students yelling as they walk down the street--in Frontenac ward, far from the traditional student areas.The city council, the University, and the city police have tried lesser measures to control the Aberdeen party, with no success.

For those of you who are saddened that the six-year "tradition" of the Aberdeen party might be shut down, you might feel differently if it were your car that had been flipped and set on fire, or your house that had been vandalised, or your children who were unable to sleep through the night.