Party Politics: Amherst’s Recent Social Decline

Many Amherst students may have observed that, this semester more than ever, partying has become noticeably harder. It seems that parties are being shut down earlier and more frequently than in past years, and some of the campus’s traditionally popular hosting locations — particularly Charles Drew Memorial Culture House, the Black affinity housing colloquially known as Drew House — have been unable to host parties reliably. In light of these changes, The Student investigated why the party scene feels so different this fall, how these changes are affecting various parts of the Amherst community differently, and what they might signal for campus social life going forward. 

What Happened to Drew House?

Alongside a general increase in party shutdowns, many students have noticed that Drew House, which is a Student-Hosted Event Policy (SHEP) venue and traditionally a common hosting space for Black Student Union (BSU) and the African and Caribbean Students Union (ACSU), has held virtually no large parties this semester.  

“I work on the budgetary committee, and ACSU came in with a $500 request to move furniture for Drew,” Drew resident and AAS senator Mikka Wolff ’27 said. “We asked, ‘Why is this happening? This has never been a precedent in the past’ … They said that they were in the common room … moving furniture down the stairs, and a woman came into the room and said that this is not permissible, and that you have to pay an outside contractor to move the furniture for you, basically saying we’re not to be trusted to move furniture down the stairs.”

Wolff explained that neither ACSU nor BSU has requested money to host parties in Drew since this initial request, as “it’s just a strain on any E-board that wants to use the Drew House to request that amount of money and make a deal with a private contractor.”

According to Wolff, “[Members of Drew House] have been sort of deferring. But it just means that culture in Drew House is struggling because we’re not able to use the facilities for the purpose they’re designed for.”

“I’ve been pushing out furniture for years for Drew,” Kamil Mouehla ’26, who has hosted multiple parties on campus since 2021. “There’s no way we could throw a party without the furniture being moved.”

Ayres Warren ’26, treasurer of the Black Student Union (BSU) and AAS senator, noted that the situation seems confusing because furniture is commonly moved around when events are hosted in other residence halls. According to her, it was communicated to the BSU E-board that since “there’s not as much furniture in other places as there is in Drew, it’s not that big of a deal [to move furniture in other venues].”

Some students are not convinced by this rationale. “It is just a very suspect situation as to why Drew House is the only dorm at Amherst College that is not seen as being trustworthy enough to move their own furniture,” Wolff said.

Many noted the negative effects of Drew House being unable to reliably host parties on the experiences of students of color at the college. 

“I think just having the ability for these different orgs to come together is important, both from a racial-cultural perspective, but then also a larger school perspective,” Warren said. “My freshman year, it didn’t matter whether you were part of the BSU or not — when Drew hosted something, those were the events that really brought people together. I think to have that be really limited does a disservice.”

Another prominent space for students of color on campus is Newport House, which houses the Spanish House and the Latinx Culture House. However, in 2024, residents of Newport voluntarily opted not to make their common space available for SHEP reservations. Valentina Guerrero ’27, a Newport resident, shared that the decision was fairly unanimous and was informed by the house’s homey feel, the proximity of the kitchen to the party space, and, most importantly, a mural painted onto the basement wall completed in February 2024 that the residents wanted to protect. 

When asked for comment, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Senior Associate Dean of Students Megan Lennon stated on Nov. 18 that “We are currently working with students at Charles Drew and BSU, as well as colleagues in Campus Operations, Community Living, and Student Engagement, to ensure alignment on next steps and any potential policy considerations.”

Why Do Parties Get Shut Down?

If a student wants to throw a party on campus, they must comply with SHEP. According to the college’s website, “SHEP refers to any event in the residence hall common spaces with 20 or more people in attendance.” SHEP requires that students undergo host training in order to reserve a space; that events occur between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m.; and that attendance is capped at 99 people. The college’s website states that “Events that fail to uphold the standards of this policy may be interrupted by College staff and end before their scheduled end time.” 

According to the college’s website, the Community Safety Assistants (CSA), who are members of the Community Safety Team in the Office of Community Living, are responsible for checking in with student hosts before their event and facilitating the dispersal of parties that violate SHEP policy. The Student reached out to the Community Safety Team for more information about their role in facilitating parties on campus, but they did not directly answer the questions. 

While the Community Safety Team is distinct from the Amherst College Police Department (ACPD), the CSAs can call ACPD to assist with shutting down on-campus events. “ACPD gets involved at the request of the Community Safety team when attendees and/or the host fail to comply with their requests,” Executive Director of Safety and Chief of Police John Carter explained in an Oct. 21 email to The Student. He explained that once the Community Safety Team has determined that an event must end, “Anyone who is not a resident of the building must leave, and the common area must be cleaned and restored to the condition it was in prior to the event.”

Carter noted that ACPD is the primary responder in the event of criminal behavior at an on-campus event. However, he explained that “ACPD has a limited role in on-campus social life by design” and is more focused on “community caretaker tasks” like responding to alarms and medical emergencies.

Shifts in the Social Scene

While the CSAs have facilitated SHEP events on campus since the fall of 2021, many students report that parties seem to be getting shut down more frequently this semester than in past years.

“The social life on campus this semester has been interesting in a way that I don't think is positive or good or enjoyable,” Warren said. 

Warren clarified that, while she has never felt targeted by the CSAs and has had very positive experiences with them, “they do just feel more present than last year.”

Mouehla echoed this sentiment. “I think this year’s SHEP has just gotten out of control … it’s just gotten way too strict,” he said. “Any small mistake you make when throwing the party … gets [the party] shut down immediately. There have been times when parties have started at 10 [p.m.] and been shut down at 11:15 [p.m.]”

Warren recalled a conversation she had with Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Angie Tissi-Gassoway, in which the pair noted a change in the behavior of CSAs this semester. “[Tissi-Gassoway] gets a report, I guess, of everything that [the CSAs] do at the end of each weekend, and she was saying that they’ll come at the beginning of the party, because they have to, and they’re supposed to come at the end of the party. But what she noticed in the reports is the CSAs are basically coming back almost every hour to check on things, almost like they’re searching for issues,” Warren said. “They don’t need to be checking every hour; people are SHEP-trained, the CSAs do the first walkthrough, it shouldn’t be that they’re coming in to look for issues.”

“It feels like maybe starting last year, the CSAs were coming through more often,” Adela Thompson Page ’26, a SHEP host for Humphries House parties, said.

Some believe that SHEP itself has always had a negative effect on the Amherst party scene. “It’s so ridiculously difficult to be able to request a space. You have to go through SHEP training, you have to sit through all these lectures,” Wolff said. “A person’s general tendency to plan very far in advance and their ability to throw a very good party [doesn’t] tend to really correlate very strongly. So I do think that the system that we have right now sort of precludes a lot of the would-be best party throwers from making Amherst a lively space,” he noted.

Mouehla identified a cycle in party hosting and shutdowns that discourages students from attempting to host parties. “When the Five College community makes a consensus reaction and says, ‘Hey, we’re not coming to Amherst, because it’s gonna get shut down,’ then there [are] not going to be anyone at these parties which [then] makes people say, ‘Hey these people don’t know how to throw parties’ when, in fact, they can,” he said. “It’s just a huge dilemma.”

Guerrero noted that this cycle also has a negative impact on students’ desire to host on-campus parties. “There’s always the possibility that it can just get shut down that quickly, which I think really discourages not only people from attending, but organizers from organizing the party,” she said.

Disparities in Social Experiences

While many students reported generally positive experiences interacting with CSAs, a notable disparity was observed in the experiences of different party hosting entities. Thompson Page helps to host parties at Humphries House — colloquially known as the “Zü” — and said that “as an entity hosting an event, the Zü has had overwhelmingly pretty positive relationships with the CSAs.” 

Thompson Page also said that the CSA staff often praise the work the Zü has put into hosting and maintaining the party.

“When they have come into the house to do checks, they have almost always been very complimentary, and they see how much effort we’re putting in, and have usually been pretty kind and helpful,” she said. 

While Mouehla said he also has good relationships with CSAs, he felt that his parties are almost always met with more surveillance than other social gatherings on campus. “Whenever my name was slapped on a poster, [there] was immediate security,” he said. “I would have ACPD around the building, I would have CSAs around the building, and I would have multiple calls from the CSAs during a party. I’ve never seen that with any other party at Amherst.”

Specifically, Mouehla pointed out how CSAs respond differently to parties hosted between sports teams, known as “mixers,” compared to parties he has hosted. “I’ve never seen ACPD ever come to a lacrosse party … I’ve never seen ACPD step into Crossett Christmas, never. The CSAs will stop in, they’ll smile, nod their heads, and leave. I’ve seen that way too many times.” 

Warren also observed disparities in the ability of different social groups to host parties. “The ability to have parties and to have a cultural space is incredibly important for Drew and all the other sorts of houses on campus,” Warren said. “I feel like you don’t necessarily see the same issue with [Morris Pratt Hall] or Jenkins [Hall] … where things are getting shut down like this.”

Warren noted that the 99-person cap on all SHEP-available spaces enables smaller functions, such as sports mixers, to thrive while limiting larger parties that are open to Five College students. “With any other sort of campus group, whether it’s Drew and the BSU or La Causa, ACSU … there’s going to be a larger percentage of students on campus [attending] plus Five College people [coming] in. That party is just going to go over 99 [people],” she explained. 

Mouehla believes that the reason his parties get shut down more often is that they attract students from across the Five College Consortium. “Across the Five College community, like UMass, Mount Holyoke, and Smith, there’s a lot of [people of color] (POC). There’s a lot of POC groups there that have been yearning for parties that accept them and acknowledge their different music tastes,” Mouehla said. “So they would flock over to Amherst.”

Mouehla believed that a party with approximately 400 attendees that he hosted last year contributed to the increase in security at on-campus parties attended by Five College students.

“There wasn’t a lot of security, or some Five College people, they forget it’s a dorm [and] that we’re hosting a party in a space where students live,” he explained. “So there are certain people who just disregard property, and [disrupt] people who live there.” After receiving numerous complaints, the party was shut down.

Mouehla said that this event led CSAs to particularly distrust any Five College presence at parties, and believed that was why his parties and those hosted by other affinity groups have been targeted. 

“I think my parties sort of left a lingering effect on BSU, ACSU, and La Causa because these parties also invite the Five College community,” Mouehla said. “It’s a lot of Black and Brown people, and I feel like that is sort of threatening to the CSAs, because it's like they really are sort of scared about what can potentially happen.” 

Looking Forward

Many students cited the lack of appropriate hosting spaces as a major reason that issues are arising. “I think Amherst really needs to find out how to really create better spaces for people to throw parties, especially because our facilities do not have the capacity to hold about 500 people,” Mouehla said.

The administration encouraged both Warren and Mouehla to host their parties in the Powerhouse, which has a 250-person capacity. “The powerhouse always gets brought up, and we kind of push back against that. Do people want to go to a party that still has a capacity limit, and that’s also right next to the police station?” Warren said.

Warren thought Amherst’s status as an overwhelmingly residential campus might be why there are so many issues with the party scene. “A lot of the ways that the other NESCACs circumnavigate [this issue] is they either have frats, or they have off-campus housing … the Lodge doesn’t exist anymore, and Vera [parties] doesn’t exist [anymore]. So we’ve kind of really shrunk back onto campus, in a way that maybe we just weren’t expecting,” she said. 

Looking forward, Warren thought that Valentine Dining Hall could become a potential space for students to host parties, given that the school is transitioning to the new Student Center and Dining Commons in the fall. “If you clear that up, that’s plenty of space, because we’re all supposed to eat there all the time, so technically we can have a full capacity,” she said.

In considering what the administration can do to improve the party scene, Wolff believes that the college should have “some sort of DJ subsidy training program” to address the crucial issue of a lack of “proper DJs” amongst the student body. 

Wolff affirmed that improving Amherst’s party culture is something the college administration should take seriously, provided that they want students to accept admissions offers. “Amherst needs to expand its definition of what it means to serve its students,” Wolff said. “It’s not just about making kids work for as much time as possible. It’s about creating a brand image for the school where people know that Amherst College kids are happy, that Amherst College kids have fun.” 

Warren also called on the administration to ensure students can lead a flourishing social life. “They say we work hard, play hard, but I think we’re working a lot, and people are not really having time to decompress and hang out, especially if those options are limited,” she said. 

Warren said that AAS was planning more events next semester to hopefully improve the social scene for students, including a prom for seniors as well as a “quad prom” for first-year students on the First-Year Quad. While the college attempts to implement campus-wide functions like The Amherst Party (TAP) and the Rave, many still believe that students and administrators need to work collaboratively to create real change in Amherst social life. “I just hope Amherst sees that this is not fair to any of us,” Mouehla said. “I mean, you can see the parties have gone down in quality, and we shouldn't have to wait for a rave every semester.”