Spring Break
The Daily OrangePaying for your puke
By Claire Zillman
Posted: 11/13/07, 12:58 AM EST Section: Opinion
Attending Syracuse University is expensive. We have to pay for tuition, textbooks, lab fees, basketball and football tickets, and all of our daily essentials. But SU students should be happy there's one cost we don't have to cover - a fine for puking on a university bus.
Last month, administrators at George Washington University implemented a rule that charges students up to $300 for vomiting on some of the university's buses, one route in particular being notorious for its late-night pukers.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Robert S. Snyder, an administrator at GW, said the fee will mainly cover the cost of cleanup and the taxi vouchers for other bus riders trying to get home.
Pat yourselves on the back, SU students. Scot Vanderpool, manager of parking and transit services at SU, said students are generally well-behaved on the university buses and vomit onboard is a rare occurrence.
"We do not have any type of penalty in place for students who vomit," Vanderpool said in an e-mail interview.
And that's how it should be.
Most of the students who ride Centro's SU bus routes live on South Campus. Upperclassmen who make their homes on South Campus chose to be there with the knowledge that they would depend on the buses for their daily commutes to North Campus.
But dozens of freshmen who live in South Campus' Skyhalls had no say in their housing arrangements. These students would be the victims of a puking policy solely because of their reliance on the buses to visit North Campus and enjoy the university's social scene.
They may drink just as much as their North Campus-residing classmates, yet they would be punished for vomiting on the bus ride home, while other freshmen could simply walk home and enjoy the luxury of puking alongside the sidewalk, instead of on a bus' floor.
While GW administrators said their fines encourage GW students to act responsibly, Vanderpool said punishment of the same sort isn't necessary for SU students. He said students haven't been a problem on buses.
"If they were, we would have addressed the problems," Vanderpool said. "The students have been great."
In addition, he acknowledged that SU would find problems applying the rule if someone vomited as a result of motion sickness or food poisoning as opposed to alcohol consumption.
Some students like sophomore Kim Holley have seen their peers vomit on the buses and want them to pay the consequences.
Earlier this fall, Holley held back the hair of a girl she didn't know as the girl threw up on the floor of a South Campus bus.
"She was sitting alone and was really messed up," Holley said. "No one was helping her, so I did. She barfed all over. It was so gross."
Vanderpool said such occurrences aren't frequent enough to incur a specific punishment.
While we complain about paying $80 for a 200-page paperback book and $1.75 per vending machine soda, SU students should remember it could be worse - at least we can puke for free.
Claire Zillman is a biweekly columnist for The Daily Orange. She can be reached at cszillma@syr.edu.
Last month, administrators at George Washington University implemented a rule that charges students up to $300 for vomiting on some of the university's buses, one route in particular being notorious for its late-night pukers.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Robert S. Snyder, an administrator at GW, said the fee will mainly cover the cost of cleanup and the taxi vouchers for other bus riders trying to get home.
Pat yourselves on the back, SU students. Scot Vanderpool, manager of parking and transit services at SU, said students are generally well-behaved on the university buses and vomit onboard is a rare occurrence.
"We do not have any type of penalty in place for students who vomit," Vanderpool said in an e-mail interview.
And that's how it should be.
Most of the students who ride Centro's SU bus routes live on South Campus. Upperclassmen who make their homes on South Campus chose to be there with the knowledge that they would depend on the buses for their daily commutes to North Campus.
But dozens of freshmen who live in South Campus' Skyhalls had no say in their housing arrangements. These students would be the victims of a puking policy solely because of their reliance on the buses to visit North Campus and enjoy the university's social scene.
They may drink just as much as their North Campus-residing classmates, yet they would be punished for vomiting on the bus ride home, while other freshmen could simply walk home and enjoy the luxury of puking alongside the sidewalk, instead of on a bus' floor.
While GW administrators said their fines encourage GW students to act responsibly, Vanderpool said punishment of the same sort isn't necessary for SU students. He said students haven't been a problem on buses.
"If they were, we would have addressed the problems," Vanderpool said. "The students have been great."
In addition, he acknowledged that SU would find problems applying the rule if someone vomited as a result of motion sickness or food poisoning as opposed to alcohol consumption.
Some students like sophomore Kim Holley have seen their peers vomit on the buses and want them to pay the consequences.
Earlier this fall, Holley held back the hair of a girl she didn't know as the girl threw up on the floor of a South Campus bus.
"She was sitting alone and was really messed up," Holley said. "No one was helping her, so I did. She barfed all over. It was so gross."
Vanderpool said such occurrences aren't frequent enough to incur a specific punishment.
While we complain about paying $80 for a 200-page paperback book and $1.75 per vending machine soda, SU students should remember it could be worse - at least we can puke for free.
Claire Zillman is a biweekly columnist for The Daily Orange. She can be reached at cszillma@syr.edu.
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