Making this a formal I will actually remember

CO \I \IE'\ T \RY

Th.is Friday night, many of the women of Cabrini College will spend hours doing their hair and makeup.

CHRIS NIELSEN They wm also put on their best dresses, which they spent weeks looking for at the King of Prussia Mall. The men of Cabrini will tie their ties if they still remember how to and maybe even iron their khakis. After that, they will drink absurd amounts of alcohol, half of which will end up, one way or another, on their well-groomed clothes.

It's the Winter Fonnal, baby!

I love the fonnals at this college. The way people act at formals is at times friggin' hilarious. I mean, when else would you get to spend $25 a ticket, $40 a couple if you plan ahead and get a date, and I don't know how much to get a room, and then proceed to spend $10 for a case of beer to get absolutely ridiculous? Oh, the irony of it all.

I know that some of my readers are first-year students who have never attended a Cabrini fonnal before. I just want to tell you that they are worth every last cent, in all seriousness. Here are just some of my fondest memories of fonnals past, in no particular order:

1) Guy throwing up in hallway in front of fonner director of student activities;

2) Confrontation between sports teams started by guys who are not allowed to be there in the first place;

3) Mosh pits broken up by the DJ after five seconds; And, perhaps what Cabrini fonnals are best known for:

4) People hooking up who have absolutely no business hooking up with one another.

Maybe I am looking at this all wrong, though. Maybe the really special things about the fonnals are not the things you remember, but those you don't.

I woke up the morning after last spring's formal still in my shirt and tie on House Five's living room couch, with a bottle of Tropicana Twister next to me. My first action was to promptly call my friends over at House Seven to ask them what I had been up to. They said I wanted to start a band called Mumbles with my friend Mark the Pimp.

(Our band never came together, by the way. Creative differences, you know.)

People discover new talents at the fonnals. For example, there are many excellent swing dancers in this school, including yours truly. And I've never even had a lesson!

Lately I've been thinking, though. I wonder what our formals are like for people who choose not to drink alcohol. What is going through their minds as they watch the inebriated majority make delightful fools of themselves? How do they manage to make their bodies dance without the added lubrication of Natural Ice beer, known for its smooth taste?

I kind of want to find out. Just a sort of test for myself, to see if I can go out in a shirt and tie and not use that as an excuse to get bombed. It could be interesting, being out on a dance floor with a clear mind. I'll try anything once.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not going to the formal completely sober. I enjoy the taste of good beer, as do the majority of my friends. I will without a doubt drink a few Yuenglings or perhaps Labatt's Blues before going to the Valley Forge Hilton. But instead of 10, I'll only drink three.

And maybe then I won't decide to try and tackle any of my fellow editors from Loquitur. Maybe I won't mistake one girl for another who I have been in school with since kindergarten. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to go to work the next day without a splitting headache.

And if not, there is always the winter gala, and that one is free.

Chris Nielsen is the perspectives editor of Loquitur. Everybody make way for his "Jump,Jive and Wail" dance.

Letter To The Editor

Administration responds to the issue of sexual harassment on campus

I am writing in response to the editorial "Are Cabrini's women being harassed?" The person who wrote this article does not seem to have read the sexual harassment policy carefully or to understand its purpose.

The policy applies to "anyone enrolled at or who works for Cabrini College" and it was developed to govern the way all members of our community- students, faculty and staff-interact with and communicate with each other. The policy is intended to protect members of the Cabrini College community from unwelcome sexual attention and advances from other members of the community, both those in higher authority and those at the same institutional status. It is for this reason that the vice president for academic affairs, the dean of students and the director of human resources are the contact people. The are the people who have the primary responsibility, respectively, for faculty, students and staff.

The alleged unseemly behavior by members of the Valley Forge Military Academy towards some of Cabrini's female students is a violation of Cabrini's Code of Conduct as it is explained under the heading B. Conc:em for the physical health and safety of others on page 36 in the Student Handbook.

It would have been totally appropriate for Cabrini's female students to report the aggressive behavior of the male guests to members of public safety or to other college personnel. The male guests should have been asked to leave campus and forcibly removed by Public Safety if they refused to do so. Their names should have been recorded and their behavior re- ported to the appropriate administrator on their home campus. It is not clear from the editorial what action the women who felt threatened took.

I would be happy to meet with any of the students who wish to discuss this meeting further.

Jonnie G. Guerra Vice President for Academic Affairs