Cheap beer, loud music and a few hundred underage students are all it takes to create the classic college social experience. Students have long found the perfect mix of those factors in house parties, and Duke is no exception-the rental houses off East Campus have served as party venues for years.
But after a rollercoaster year that began with a couple hundred citations from Alcohol Law Enforcement officers and ended with dozens of angry neighbors, an alleged gang rape and a $3.7-million purchase of 12 houses by the University, students are left scrambling for alternatives to keep the off-campus social scene alive.
Typically, upperclass fraternity brothers rent the houses, and in the past few years they've used them to host a number of parties-some infamous-that often see upwards of 500 students in attendance.
"They're crazy because there are a lot of people, not because there are crazy things going on," senior Andrew Wolstan says.
The parties started during freshman orientation. When the sun set over East Campus, the kegs lured freshmen over the wall and into the social scene.
Senior Ben Rubinfeld says parties like those were his introduction to a world that would define his collegiate social life.
"It really is a shame because those big parties are ways that freshmen got to know upperclassmen," he says.
The ALE debacle at the beginning of Fall 2005 meant there has been a significant decrease in the number of large house parties. Instead, more tenants have begun to host "late nights"-small, spontaneous and markedly tamer gatherings that happen after last call.
But even this smaller-scale form of socializing may disappear in the year ahead. Duke's real estate acquisitions mean that rising upperclassmen had to go further into Durham to find housing, so students will have to travel farther from campus to reach the new late-night destinations, perhaps opening a greater risk for drunk driving.
Wolstan, who signed a lease for a private house behind Baldwin Auditorium with friends, seems hopeful for the next year.
"Duke kids are smart, we'll figure out a way to all hang out together," he says.
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