ON CAMPUS — I can see May 16 now: The disenchanted Sun God
Festival Planning Committee’s respectable hopes of altering the festival’s
image into that of an event for the UCSD family will gradually be shattered by
boisterous drunk students and nonaffiliates as the day passes. Sure, the goal
of avoiding an exodus of students bottlenecking narrow exits may be
accomplished, but the stark reality that the festival has been engraved in
students’ minds as the day to gorge themselves on alcohol and partake in other
illicit activities will become irrefutably evident.
Since early October, the planning committee, composed of
students, staff and UC security, has met periodically in an attempt to prevent
some of the problems that plagued last year’s festival caused the event to be
deemed a complete disaster. After receiving complaints ranging from a lack of
sufficient food and water to student grievances against the use of undercover
police, the committee gathered these criticisms to compile a Sun God Planning
Report, which listed both complaints and suggestions about how to amend the
festival.
Though the list of goals and recommendation seemed endless,
most of the material revolved around one pressing issue: The campus should
create a Sun God Festival more oriented around the UCSD community. For example,
students have traditionally thought of Sun God as a day to play hooky in order
to get so drunk that the concert portion of the day becomes an obscure memory.
However, in their attempt to make Sun God a euphoric experience through illicit
means, students are agitating the university by getting arrested and thus,
tarnishing the reputation of Sun God and UCSD.
This cause and effect was illustrated by more than 355 arrests
on campus throughout the day of the festival last year. How does the planning
committee attempt to solve this? Uniformed officers from other universities
will be pooled together in order to act as surrogates for undercover police and
local volunteers, who made up the majority of the policing force last year.
Uniformed police were requested this year because they make their presence
clear. The utter audacity it takes to reform such a long-standing image is
praiseworthy, but one can immediately understand how the individual responsible
for this idea was oblivious to the foreseeable blatant holes in this logic. By
employing officers who will arrest a fewer number of students, which seems to
be the only logical reason different police offers were hired, it only seems
reasonable to assume there will be even more intoxicated people at the
festival.
Thus, the change will only be cosmetic because it simply
evades the issue at hand. While statistically, this year will be called a
success since fewer people are expected to be arrested, future festivals may
encourage more students to get drunk since the risk of getting caught will have
diminished greatly with student-friendly cops.
Another major reformation will be in the entrance setup,
which also poses ways for students to sidestep the righteous goals the planning
committee has set. Instead of using ID scanners, students will only need their
ID cards and a wristband, which will be distributed a few days before the
festival for both entry and re-entry (yes, the school decided to rescind the no
re-entry rule). These changes may seem convenient, but as pessimistic as it may
sound, giving students the right to come and go as they please throughout the
day seems like a marvelous opportunity for students to go get drunk, sober up
and then go get even more drunk in their dorms to repeat the intoxicated cycle.
Thus, like the new security plans, the re-entry policy will be another
superficial alteration to Sun God that may actually encourage a diametrically
opposite outcome from what the planning committee originally hoped — there
won’t be less drunkards, just less causing trouble or getting caught.
Now, I would be willing to forgive these futile, yet
virtuous, attempts to revamp Sun God, but after hearing about a festival budget
that surpasses last year’s — totaling up to $400,000 — and the lineup (which is
made up of artists who are seldom considered to be in vogue, except among
middle schoolers), the likelihood of redemption is slim to none. Not only could
the school have made more substantial changes with a $400,000 budget, such as
the artist selection, but also, the question of where the university’s
priorities are comes to mind. Instead of spending money on one day, which, in
all likelihood, will not be remembered by the students, many of whom will be
inebriated, the university should spend the money on things that are beneficial
to students, such as parking spaces, smaller classes and more classes, to name
a few.
While the planning committee’s efforts should be extolled,
the festival, which has been embraced by students as a “binge-all-you-want”
day, will continue to hold this reputation until one of two things occurs.
First, the university could undergo a “Sun God culture cleansing” by hiring the
most authoritarian police force it can find to arrest everyone who has even a
whiff of alcohol on their breath in order to scare students from drinking,
which will also subsequently have the effect of eliminating all hype and
anticipation students have for the festival. Or two, (my personal favorite) the
university could conduct more efforts to teach students how to approach the act
of drinking and its relationship to the festival. In other words, UCSD should
try to educate students about the harmful effects of drinking and why it should
only be done in moderation. Until one of these two things occurs, students will
be impervious to the tweaks the planning committee may throw at them in order
to force them into drinking less. Instead, the tweaks will be deflected as
cosmetic changes, while the core of Sun God will revolve around taking shots
and getting high.
