It’s no secret that the current economic crisis had had a pretty severe impact on private universities. Not only have they lost some serious funding, but they’ve lost some serious student recruits who can no longer afford the high price of a private college education. Those universities, then, have been forced to get really crafty in their attempts to entice those incoming students to come their way.

And nothing says “Come to my school!” like a little song and dance.

Well, at least that’s what Yale thinks. They recently put together this gem to try and attract potential students, and other universities are scouring campus high and low for the theater kids and following suit (including mine).

Yes, my friends, that is a musical. A college recruitment musical. With singing and dancing and acting…and more singing. To get kids to choose Yale.

Now, I love me some Glee just as much as the next girl (Corey Monteith…yum), but really? Doesn’t it seem a bit…desperate…that the most prestigious university in the country needs a little song and dance (literally) to recruit? Theatre geeks might be into it, but I doubt the general student population would even give it 15 (!) minutes of their time.

Not only does it miss the mark in accurately representing college life (unless Yale students randomly break into song on the green, the treadmill or during office hours), but it is clearly an obvious attempt on the part of Yale to prove one thing and one thing only to their potential students: that there are some hot kids on campus, too (1:10, 3:04, 4:27, 4:32, 4:50 [wowza! that guy on the treadmill is smokin'!])

Yes, even at Yale.

And the lyrics! Nothing makes me want to choose Yale quite like a girl scooping out her lunch, belting out “Every college has a dining hall with a salad bar and grill….” It’s just way too cheesy on my lactose intolerant tummy.

I applaud those Yalies at creating a masterpiece and highlighting the acting and singing chops of some of the student body, but as far as wanting to go there now that I’ve seen their tour guide sing? Hm, not so much. And not even the killer guitar solos (at 12:10) will change my mind.

All I’m really feeling is sympathy for the poor kids who will never live this video down. As long as they live.

When it comes to recruiting students maybe universities should save their time and money and stick to sharing the stuff people really want to know: what the current students have to say. Not sing – say. We don’t need a cheesy song (that gets stuck in our heads for 4 hours) – we just want the real deal.

No one should be expected to sit in the library or stare at their dorm room walls every day of the week with their nose in a book. Everyone needs something that helps them unwind, especially on the weekends.

Sometimes finding something to do – especially on a campus where parties are a rare occasion -  is hard. I knew when I signed my life away as a Hollins woman, I was going to be living in Roanoke, Virginia,and that I wouldn’t have a big city as my playground on the weekend. I knew I wasn’t attending a huge state school where fraternity parties are the social factor and that club activities would be endless. As a prospective, I remember asking about the student life on the weekends only to hear the same fib that my fellow peers heard themselves as prospective students: “Don’t worry about it, you will always find something going on.”

Oh, but that is very far from the truth. Options on campus are very bleak. From the first weekend as a first year, I realized as no one was around on the weekends I would have to be entirely responsible for finding something to do Friday and Saturday nights. While not feeling bogged down by having too many social activities planned, I like that Hollins has a sleepy atmosphere (especially for those weekends I need to do a lot of work), but for the most part – I don’t understand why we can’t have some sort of decent entertainment when the weekend rolls around.

The social scene at Hollins on any given weekend can be summed up in three ways:

1) You leave on the weekends

2) You rely on an apartment party or a party hosted by NEFA (a specialty housing dorm)

3) You hope the Student Life/Activity Board has something planned

A huge chunk of the student body leaves on the weekend. Girls carpool for the entire weekend up to Hampden-Sydney, an all male college two hours away and sleep on random futons since making the drive back in one night is out of the question. If Hampden-Sydney isn’t someone’s bag, other colleges like Washington and Lee, Virginia Tech, and Roanoke College can be visited. However, if you don’t know someone who goes to those schools, good luck finding a party or meeting people. What does the rest of the student body do when they leave? They go home! Students who are from Virginia or even close cities in North Carolina find themselves frequently going home because of the lack of campus activities. The only time students make plans to stay is if a formal is happening, which only happens twice a year.

Occasionally an apartment party or a themed party through NEFA will happen, but the frequency of this is rare. Also, these parties aren’t for everyone. Many girls don’t feel comfortable going over to the campus apartments because they don’t fit the cliques that live in many of the apartments. NEFA, a housing dorm for the campus’ artsy folks, throws unique, unforgettable parties, but most of them are not for the faint of heart. What if you just want a small get together? What about a dorm room?

Parties in other dorms do not happen, whatsoever, which can be very frustrating. Say it’s 11pm on Friday and you want to “Just Dance” along with Lady Gaga and your two best friends? Good luck getting through the song before someone calls Campus Safety to complain and a knock from an officer interrupts you. Every hour in all the dorms seems to be quiet hour. Whenever students speak up about the lack of social atmospheres, the Activity Board usually says “We have monthly mixers with a DJ and we invite other schools” to combat the complaints, but it does not suffice when no one actually shows up to the poorly planned and advertised school sponsored parties.

For a small university, Hollins is very diverse in its beliefs and types of students. Regardless of the variety amongst us, I have heard over and over again that not enough is done on the weekends in order to give students something to do. Yes, Hollins shows a movie every weekend in the auditorium and they have a shuttle take students to the mall, movies, and Wal-Mart, but that is not enough. When over half of the campus departs on the weekend to other colleges or home, something more needs to be done. How can a campus have a close-knit community when everyone leaves by 2pm on Friday and returns by 6pm on Sunday?

I am not asking for endless activities on the weekend. I think that students should be responsible for coming up with something to do, but I do believe that the university should endorse a more sociable atmosphere. Whether that means allowing students to have dance parties at reasonable hours without getting campus officers sent up or providing well planned mixers with other colleges, something needs to happen in order to help the social scene from sinking even more than it continues to do so!

In asking for other opinions from students on campus, Hollins sophomore Jennifer Old sums up how actions should be taken on campus to improve the overall weekend situation: “I think people are hesitant about the parties and other social events held on campus. Parties are broken up much more quickly at Hollins and the threat of the Roanoke Police has become very real. As for the social scene outside of the party sphere, I think there should be a community forum every semester. HAB (The Activity Board) should hear the collective desires of the campus and cater to the diverse interests of Hollins women.”

Obviously a social environment is very important to college life. Now tell me, how do you spend your weekends? Do you think your college provides enough entertainment and amusement for students? What do you want more of in your school’s social scene? Dish – I want to hear what I’m missing!

My university is not one of those schools that eagerly works to improve the situation in the dining hall, even though it is overwhelmingly a huge issue on campus.

From day one, I have heard nothing but complaints from my peers, and even my professors – and now, two and a half years later, complaints and concerns of the dining program (created by Sodexho – a program which works with many schools across the nation) still circulate on a day-to-day basis.

As a campus, Hollins students are indisputably guilty for interminable complaining about the issues with Sodexho as a program and the administration taking responsibility (or lack thereof) for student concerns over food issues, but I don’t blame anyone for their incessant pressure on trying to improve the situation. Hollins doesn’t offer a varying meal plan; its unlimited access to the dining hall from breakfast until the cafeteria closes at 7pm binds students to the meal-plan, making getting off the meal plan nearly impossible.

I have seen a huge variety of issues that students have brought up to the public forum: not enough variety in the menu options, foods not being cooked at right temperatures or having a decent amount of heat to them (especially the meat), alike foods such as quesadillas and burgers are in rotation every day (French fries are offered every day, too), no options for vegans except tofu in the salad bar (and very futile options available for vegetarians – especially at a school where vegetarians are a majority), unhealthy options clutter the stations (one night, three types of potatoes were offered: waffle fries, curly fries, and tatter tots), the ingredients on the labels are not present (what about students who have food allergies?), and most of the time, labels are not even put out near a station.

These are just the minimal grumbles that have been brought up over and over again within the student body, and no one from the administration or the manager of the dining hall ever really gives a solid answer on how to fix the program. The few times promises are made to make a change in the dining hall, nothing ever happens.

Many students have tried to jump start programs. For example, last year some students started a petition to get cage-free eggs instead of regular eggs on campus. I believe nearly 500 students signed it (in a school of 800), but the petition was ignored. How can 500 students be ignored? Students tried starting a food committee, but that didn’t last for long – no one seemed interested in taking on the responsibility, especially when everyone knows that the administration has no interest in really making changes. The Health Department has even been called before, and that wasn’t enough to jump start any movement. Honestly, I think students feel like nothing can be done – especially since everyone on campus knows that a contract was signed between Hollins and Sodexho a few years ago, making the partnership inevitable. The contract seems more important than the well-being of the students, at this point.

Although many point to Sodexho, I do not think all the blame can fall on the national food company. Many other universities use Sodexho, but they have no qualms about what their students are being served and neither do the students. The plan Hollins picked is not pleasing students, at all, and that needs to be addressed by those who have the power. Hello administration, are you listening yet? It seems like the only people who could do something are the administration, but I don’t think they care. After all, they don’t have to eat there night after night.

While the rest of the students have numerous complaints, I specifically have two:

My friend’s mothers who went here talk with smiles on their face about the food. They absolutely loved it, and it seems like it was such a coveted memory of long meals with their friends eating some good meals. Now, students rush to eat what they can (if anything, especially on weekends) and then compare food poisoning stories with their friends. In honor of our amazing alumni that Hollins toots so often, why not fix something that was so popular? Also, I think it is ironic how the food improves drastically whenever alumni, Board of Trustee members, or prospective students visit campus. Fondue and prime rib was served during Parents Weekend once, and I have to say, I haven’t seen either one since.

Whether or not it seems like it, food is a huge part of college life. If you live on campus, you eat there like it’s your home. No one should fret about whether or not they will have adequate options for dinner or if they will get sick from the Ranch Dressing that tasted more like spoiled milk.  While my fellow peers have said enough is enough over and over again, I think change will not come until the administration does something. And based on the way the administration has handled things in the past, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Now, tell me about your dining hall. Do you love it or hate it? Does it stand out from other schools across the nation? Do you think the administration at your university is conscious of the food that its students consume on a daily basis? I want to know what (kind of crap) you are getting fed by both the dining hall and the administration.

Packing up the car for a short weekend, I fell absolutely in love with everything from the rolling mountains surrounding the university, the slew of handcrafted rocking chairs on the porches, all the way to the historical landmarked buildings. Every college student has that moment when they know that this is their school – and walking across the front quadrangle, I knew I found a place to start my college journey.

Little did I know, signing the paperwork and sending a $400 deposit for my enrollment to be a student in the 2010 class was my way of making a deal with the devil.

Since being in college, I have been through hell and back, and then some. The façade of a well polished community really seemed too good to be true, but once the parents left and the magical fairy dust of being a brand-spankin’ new college student wore off and our student IDs lost their luster, so did the support and cooperation of the administration, the ideals of “sisterhood” as a unique kinship that unites community (the word ‘sisterhood’ plays a major marketing role for all-women’s colleges across the nation and sororities), the spirit of traditions, and the premise that college is actually about learning subjects in a manner of breadth and depth.

Two and a half years later, I am a junior still at the same university. I stayed for my academics, which happened to be the only aspect of school that didn’t come with strings attached. This series is my cautionary tale for those prospective students out there, those considering transferring from their universities, and those who may not be aware of the full picture happening across their campuses.

Every Thursday I will feature issues that, believe it or not, actually happen on college campuses despite what viewbooks and Dean of Students let on. While most college students have had the time of their life during their 4 years of undergrad, I have been fighting for my own life, as a very concerned student. While pushing my education and social life to the side, I have dealt with a system that I have realized is not just flawed but broken – and it’s time for me to share my story!