Res Life Staff on StFX's Party Culture

“Heavy drinking happens at universities across the board, but StFX is notorious.’’ This is from a MacLean’s article in 2018, the last time they ranked Canada’s top party schools. StFX was first, because if “partying was an endurance sport, St Francis Xavier would take the prize.’’

Quincie Grant, a third year Poli-Sci student and CA at MacIsaac, argues that “party culture should be understood through the style, scope and frequency of the partying.’’ This means recognizing that not all partying is the same. What makes the party then? Grant says, “parties attempt to live up to the expectations, and the expectations cause the parties.” A party on Friday night is built up and created in the conversations, plans, texts, and fit checks all week leading up to it. On a bigger scale, party culture at StFX is a socialization experiment that each student molds through interacting in it. When asked, Grant says he sees an “artificial switch’’, where students are influenced to adopt a party culture they may not otherwise participate in.

Elizabeth Yeo, Vice-President of Students, provided the Weekly with a written statement:

“We know that parties and social gatherings are part of university life, but they don’t define the StFX experience. Our focus is on supporting healthy peer culture — encouraging informed choices, harm reduction, and positive ways for students to connect, whether that’s through residence programming, Mocktail Nights, intramurals, or spending time at the Bloomfield Hub. We also work closely with community partners to support safer celebrations and shared responsibility between students, the University, and our neighbours’’

Savannah Pitman, a second-year student and Bishops Hall CA told me that the staffing issues the Xaverian has previously noted are improving. “They definitely upped the number [of CA’s] this year because of reputations of those buildings” said Pitman. CA’s have reported much less chaos this term than what is usually expected. Pitman said that when a CA sees that they are going to be working in Bishops Hall, for example, their first thought is often “Oh, I wonder what I’m going to deal with.” She later added that Bishops Hall has been “really good this term” and that “[she] wouldn’t say [that it’s] tame, but it’s manageable.” First semester of this term, Bishops Hall was fully staffed. This changed between semesters when one of the CA’s changed their residency; since then, damages have gone up. This could be because there aren’t enough CA’s to monitor the whole building. “There were 3 on weekends, now there’s 2” Pitman explained. These damages are paid for by the students in the residence, even the ones who have done nothing to cause the damages. But Pitman said that they are working to correct this issue and to get the damages under control. She also pointed out that a lot of the weekend parties are going across campus, to MacIsaac Hall.

In the Weekly’s conversation with Quincie Grant, he agreed with Pitman, saying that “during my first year Bishops was the party residence, but this year [unlike] last year and the year before, it’s MacIsaac Hall.” Grant made it clear that they are nonetheless “well staffed” and have “more than enough manpower” to manage the job of keeping things under control. Grant says that a full staff of CA’s at MacIsaac would be 11, and that they are currently at 10, but that “they do a good job filling the gaps [in staffing]”. While it’s evident that party culture is embedded here at StFX, Residence Life feels confident in it’s ability to manage it safely.