Some Business Policy students ignored an email addressing a ban on the longstanding, and illegal, tradition of popping champagne outside of Mandeville Hall’s main entrance after their final presentations — and found other places to do their celebratory toasts.
Some students made their way to the top floor of the Hawks Landing parking garage to pop their bottles of champagne.
Ryan Good ’19 posed with his group in front of Mandeville, before heading to the top of the parking garage to open their champagne bottles.
“We still get to celebrate one way or the other,” Good said. “It just means you can’t really pop a bottle in front of a famous building on campus.”
Joseph DiAngelo, Ed.D., dean of the Erivan K. Haub School of Business, and Cary Anderson, Ed.D., associate provost and vice president for Student Life, initiated a working group to create a letter that was sent to current Business Policy students on Nov. 29. The action was prompted by a number of concerns raised by members of the St. Joe’s community, according to DiAngelo and Anderson.
“There is no revised policy but an effort to inform students of existing policies and the disruption that has been caused in the past,” Anderson said in an email to The Hawk.
According to the university’s Student Handbook, alcohol violations include having open containers of alcohol in public areas such as outdoor spaces, campus parking lots, walkways and athletic fields.
Despite specific violations of the alcohol policy, students have not been reprimanded for their engagement in the celebration in the past. According to Anderson, the letter was meant to reinforce these guidelines.
“This conduct is a violation of Pennsylvania law, Philadelphia law, and the university’s Community Standards,” the letter stated. “It also had a negative impact on the image of the Haub School of Business and SJU.”
With final presentations in Business Policy beginning Dec. 3, Public Safety officers were on site to enforce open-container and public consumption rules, at least in front of Mandeville.
Students expressed their disappointment with the new enforcement.
“I remember hearing about the celebration as a freshman joining the business school, and I was excited to know that I would be able to do that one day,” Alex Gaydos ’19 said in an email to The Hawk. “I was really disappointed because we have worked so hard on this project the whole semester, and I think that the idea of being able to pop champagne after presenting gave us more motivation and excitement to complete the project itself.”
Some students said they were confused about the ban because they thought St. Joe’s was a wet campus.
“We’re not a wet campus,” said Eric Patton, Ph.D., chair and associate professor of management. “If you have alcohol at an event, you need permission.”
Patton, who has served on the Advisory Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Student Health for nearly 10 years, said he has received comments from other individuals at the university that it “smelled like a bar” outside Mandeville Hall following previous celebrations.
“I think it’s a bad look for students,” Patton said. “I think it’s a bad look for the university.”
Update: A previous version of this article stated that Ryan Good ’19 posed with his group in front of Mandeville, champagne bottles in hand. In fact, the group posed in front of Mandeville without champagne but did so after on Hawks Landing.
