Penn's Summer Society

NOTE: The following is an interactive column! YOU, the members of the University Community may participate in it and as a result improve social life on campus! Nearly a month later the social life on campus is non-existant. Despite the fact that we have more people on campus now than were here during that night of senior week, campus is dead. For example, take any Friday or Saturday night, you could litterally invite a group of disgruntled postal employees to campus, arm them, tell them we're adding a new zip code to campus, and there still wouldn't be a whole lot going on (note to my mail man: This excludes you of course!). My point being, there is nothing happening on campus this summer. NOTHING! Having worked in Washington, D.C. for the past two summers I can tell you our campus social life is somwhat dissapointing. I'm sure that if you haven't experienced it first-hand you've heard about the social life interns in New York and Washington enjoy. Sometimes it seems as though these people look at the work week as a break between weekends. Nightclubs in these cities gear some nights to interns, the college campuses in these areas have regular parties, and there are even compaines that specailize in throwing parties for interns only. One of these compaines was even started by a former student here at Penn. His company caters to the tens of thousands of interns that swamp Washington over the summer. His parties allow interns of all different offices to get together and meet one another. Not to mention, Penn also sponsors its own society in Washington for Penn interns. The group gets together three times a week for "happy hours" with other schools' groups and plays a weekly Sunday afternoon softball game on the mall. The group also meets with Washington leaders and insiders. This year, meetings with Frank Luntz, a former Penn professor, and Senator Rick Santorum are planned. In New York, Penn has a club that functions as the center of planned events for interns in the city. Students are also offered memberships to this club which allows them to use the weightlifting facilities, as well as grab a meal in one of the two restaurants in the club. Discussions, meetings with special speakers, and socials with other clubs are also offered to members. WHAT ABOUT US???? I realize that we don't have tens of thousands of interns here...but what happened? Why is it that we have relatively nothing in camparison to these other cities? Obviously, our city isn't as large as Washington or New York...but the nation's fifth largest city should have someting to offer college students. And as the "party school of the Ivies" Penn should have something to offer students, living on its campus, as far as a social life over the summer. I'm not suggesting that the University become directly involved in social planning (although they couldn't make it any worse). However, I am suggesting that we do something about this. After all, we're in college (not to state the obvious) -- this is our time to have fun. Am I alone, or do you walk around campus seeing one or two vaguely familliar faces?wondering who is here for the summer? Wondering what your friends' new phone numbers are? Do you get off work on a Thursday, or get out of class and wonder what is going on for the weekend? Do you think that the opening of Batman Forever functioning as the apex of social life on a college campus is a probelm? If so I have a possible solution to this problem? Part of the probelm is we don't have planned social events like the ones described above in other cities. I suggest that we have another get together like the one at the end of "senior week." We can all meet and find out who is on campus for the summer. We can plan some events like the ones that the Penn Society has in Washington or the Penn Club in New York holds for the rest of our summer. WE WILL MEET AT 10:00 PM, THIS SATURDAY(JUNE 24th), ON THE CORNER OF LOCUST WALK AND 37TH STREET (at the compass). BE THERE!!! AND TELL A FRIEND ABOUT IT. Everyone is invited. If you are unable to attend, give your name and number to a friend who is attending?that way we can contact you for future events.