Hall of Shame:LAN

2000.1 -- "Stairway to Heaven" Cut Short Scandal

Another editor of this page, me, heard my hallmate from Lancaster '05, Henry, that "Stairway to Heaven" got cut off sometime in the past two or three years at Lancaster. Then everybody protested during "American Pie."

There have been rumors that a sit-down occured at the end of the dance. More rumors say that the sit-down actually worked and the RAs did play "Stairway to Heaven" due to the fact that nobody would leave the dance.

At LAN.00.1, Stairway was cancelled at TWO dances, once for "bad behavior" ie running too fast during End of the World, etc. and once because of time constraints. LAN.00.1 became notorious for the frequent cancellations of various canon songs.

Similarly, at Siena, several songs were cut short; an entire-site sit-down led to an extension of the dance and replaying of several songs. This, however, is in the Hall of Fame:LOU, because it happened only once, and the massive protest that it led to.

2004.1 -- Security Guard Incident

At Lancaster 2004 Session 1, a male Franklin and Marshall security guard handcuffed a male CTYer and gave the key to two female CTYers nearby, instructing them to "help him out" while he watched. The incident could have been just the joke of a bored campus staff worker, or it could have been a totally creepy sketchy act of pedophilia. Although it will never be known for sure, the RAs asked the girls for their side of the story and a hall meeting announcement was made for CTYers to "avoid talking to any Franklin and Marshall staff".

2006.1 -- Hand-holding Ban

At Lancaster Session 1 '06, there was a horrible new PDA rule instated where no one was allowed to hold hands. This was immediately followed by several other strict rules, such as no linking arms. Soon, you could get in trouble for just a hug. After a 42-person grass orgy occured, grass orgies were banned. Everyone was miserable. It escalated to the point where people were bursting into tears and going to the counselors to complain. Many people complained of feeling that they weren't allowed to be affectionate towards friends. Students were getting yelled at for minor transgressions such as hugging, touching each other's hair and, in one case, sitting too close. Through the efforts of Molly Brean, Aliza Alperin-Sheriff and Dana Reback, and after several parents complained, the administration saw the error of their ways and the new PDA rules were repealed. There was much rejoicing and blatant hand-holding all over the quad.

Note: Don't forget the hand-condoms. Rubber gloves were handed out by Caroline, a girl in Molly's hall, as a protest/joke. "Use protection when you hold hands!"

2006.1 -- Fourth Thomas Break-ins

Unusually for CTY, the residents of the Fourth Thomas (North Side) hall of Adam Roush were the victims of repeated acts of vandalism. Beginning at the end of the first week, one, then several cell phones disappeared, followed by a lime green ipod Mini. Then, starting on the second weekend, unlocked rooms were entered and detergent, and in one case, soda, was poured on the floors, shoes, and papers. It was during one of these visits that a lanyard was stolen; thankfully, this unfortunate student had a roommate who was able to let him into their room. Other "pranks" included a hard-boiled egg hidden in the bathroom radiator, and a student's deodorant being placed in the microwave for three minutes. This latter incident created a rather unpleasant odor.

After a few residents of the hall noticed that there was a cell phone in the air conditioner of one of the suites, a visit by a tool-armed site director led to the return of the mostly-functional (albeit waterlogged)cell phones and ipod. While the SRA's were touring the hall, one of the showers was obviously on. It was only after they left that it was realized (by Chris Geissler) that no one had come out. He waded into the nearly-overflowing showers, turned them off, and removed to cardboard box and pair of shorts (never claimed) which were blocking the drain. Finally, on the last day, a small quantity of detergent was found in one of the suites, and $170 belonging to one student was ripped into small, later reassembled, pieces. The culprit(s), to the best of this section's author's knowledge, was/were never found.

2006.2 -- Fatal Lanyard Swinging

At Lancaster 06.2 during Acting Improv during the game World's Worst (for World's Worst Raver) Marieke Williams entered the center of the circle, swinging her lanyard (jokingly), but hit herself on the forehead with her key, making her bleed. The irony of the situation was not lost on the crowd.

2006.2 -- String Raving Ban

In Lancaster 06.2, the night of Second Saturday, the story of the admistration banning string raving flew through campus.

Left shoe protests were planned for James Brown is Dead, because it was planned for playing that night. But then, Rachel (who along with Christ had talent show rehearsals) told Alexa to prepare a trip to the site director, and along with some other students, to ask why it was banned and see if they could work something out. Their reasoning was "because we dont allow lanyard swinging and that is much like it." They simply decided it "wasn't safe." (The site director creatively suggested that the glowsticks reminded her of nunchucks.) Rumors spread that the command had been handed down from Johns Hopkins (a JHU observer had noticed the string raving and had reported it as being "dangerous" to the top officials). They made a compromise, during the designated raving songs (James Brown is Dead, Everytime We Touch, Heaven, ect.), students would be allowed to rave on the hardtop; however, non-raving students could not set foot in the area. Stupidly enough, James Brown was played while it was still light out. At the next dance, a "raving section" was created for those who wanted to practice before the designated songs. Still, no circles were allowed. The site director mentioned that the new method of "controlling" string raving had been a success and that it will most likely continue. However, since the site director changes every year, no-one knows what will happen next year.

NOTE: Glowstringing has been banned in Skidmore since 04.1 when an RA was hit with a glowstick, although the Emperor of 06.2 glowstringed anyway during the talent show and the last dance along with Edison Huff. Glowstringing was reallowed during 07.1 at Skidmore likely due to new administration.

Note: The rules instated at the Lancaster 06.2 session for string raving were not reinstated at the 07.1 Lancaster session.

Note: In years past (2001-2004 at least, perhaps earlier) string-raving was seriously limited. Students were only alowed to string-rave in a roped-off box off to one side of the arches. No doubt, this would have prevented the ban, but it lapsed during a change in admin.

2006.2 -- Losing the Duck

Before lunch of the day after the Duck was passed down, Jeff Sachs seemed unable to find the duck in his classroom. He had seemingly lost a part of Lancaster tradition. Looking everywhere, he failed to find the duck (he even looked in the trash can!), and was chastised heavily. During the next class session, however, Jeff found the duck exactly 13 inches from where he was sitting in class, on the overhead projector cart. Jeff was forgiven, but ruthlessly mocked.

2007.1 -- The Mantastik 3

The Mantastiks, named for their large muscles and manly-air of going about things, quickly formed into an intimidating group. They would not have been hall-of-shame worthy, had it not been for their actions leading up to the ban on the third floor atlee/dubbs lounge (the best one by far, with the coke and retro designs). They displayed CTYI PDA in the lounges on coutless occasions, even after being told to stop multiple times by Adam. The straw that broke the camel's back was when they took their girls (the asian posse) across from atlee/dubbs 3rd to klien/kunkel 3rd and then getting caught by Frank Wang. Their actions led to an unhappy pack of atlee/dubb-ers who could no longer enjoy the 50's themed lounge and, more importantly, the soda machine.

Within two days, however, all co-ed lounges were closed down. The shutting down of the other co-ed lounges was the fault of a few other un-named persons who were in the Schnader lounge. Also because the lounges were being broken (furniture) and trashed.

2007.1 -- Balcony Incidents

The only person to witness the Balcony Incident was Dan Salvato. The entire campus was on its way to the ASFC to watch the annual Talent Show. Dan, however, was a performer in the Talent Show and was preparing to depart with the other performers, who were grouped in Thomas Hall. A Rubik's Cube was needed as a prop for one of the MC acts, and Dan was asked to run back to his dorm in North Ben to get his cube as quickly as possible. At the front of North Ben were three RAs (Dan does not remember who) - two were at ground level, and one was a floor up on the balcony. All three RAs were laughing as the bottom two RAs attempted to toss a lanyard up to the RA on the balcony - they missed several times, and the lanyard fell back down. This is a major rule violation and would get all the balconies banned if any of the RAs caught students tossing anything up or down the balcony. It was very funny for Dan to watch, but unfortunately, he couldn't think of anything witty to say to the RAs at the time. He returned to Thomas Hall with the Rubik's Cube, and the RAs were never caught by anyone else.

There was a second incident leading to the near-banning of the Muhlenburg/Mull balcony and possibly all other balconies due to the throwing of sprinkles off it. This occurred after the 4th dance while everyone was coming in from the afterdance. The two perpetrators were stopped by two CTY students because they did not want the balconies to be banned. The following day, an RA noticed and called a hall meeting for Muhlenburg and Mull to try to figure out what happened. The RA accused these two halls because they were the only ones with sprinkles.The punishment would be having to clean up other halls. Luckily, one of the two students that stopped the two perpetrators was in one of these halls, and told his RA what he saw. The perpetrators were caught and the balconies stayed open, and the halls were not punished. One perpetrator was from outside the hall, and their punishments are unknown.

2007.1 -- Klein 1

There have probably been many halls that have defied and broken the rules of CTY before, but none greater than the residents of Klein 1. The 11 students of Klein 1 paid no disregard to the lights out rule (but then again, who did?). Unfortunately, they got caught thumbing their proverbial collective nose. One night, after many warnings and talks about going to bed after lights out, Klein One decided to keep their lights on and talk until the wee hours of morning. Unfortunately, that day, SRA Lucien was patrolling Klein One and what he saw disgusted him. Not one room had their light off and one room even had their door open with the light on. One student was playing obnoxiously loud on his guitar. Lucien was horrified and disgusted at Klein 1's disregard for CTY rules. As punishment, Lucien decided to ban the 11 students from Turkey Hill runs and Monday quad time. They could make up their lost privelages by doing 25 good deeds for the CTY community.

The next couple of weeks were brutal for the "Kleiners." Everywhere they went, they would hold doors open for other students (sometimes for more than an hour in the cafeteria). They picked up trash and litter all around campus and volunteered to help with other peoples' laundry. A week later, Klein 1 gained their Turkey Hill runs and quad time back.

Unfortunately, they did not learn their lesson. Four students of the hall decided to sneak a sleepover in one of their rooms. Stupidly, they left their light on and created tons of noise throughout the hall. Again, Lucien happened to be patrolling and caught the four students. The four students were permanently banned from Turkey Hill and Monday quad time and also had to write a letter of apology.

Things only got worse for the hall. One day during the second week of the session, everyone in the hall except for 2 students completely forgot about their evening study hall session. They arrived to their meeting spot 5 minutes too late and all of them ended up being sent to Thomas. From there, they all got heavily punished by the SRAs and camp director. Their consequences: permanent ban from Turkey Hill and quad time.

Klein One is also responsible for the creation of the hall swear box. The hall had such a severe profanity problem that their RA took away quad time for every profane word said. In the end, almost 30 minutes of quad time were taken off. The hall ended up receiving speeches on why not to use profanity and derogatory slang (due to the excessive use of the word "gay").

There were also many individual cases involving the hall. One involved the drawing of a penis in someone's chem textbook, resulting in a heavy talk with the academic advisor. Another incident occurred the day before the last dance, when one student of the hall snuck out of his room to another hall, only to be caught by Lucien again. The student was banned from going to the last dance and was also put on probation.

At the end of the session, only one student from the hall was fully capable of going to Turkey Hill on the last day.

2007.2 -- The Fire Extinguisher

As the story goes, on Monday July 16th 2007 at around 10:07 PM, Frank Wang was sitting on the 3rd floor of North Ben underneath a fire extinguisher while giving his hall meeting. At the conclusion of the hall meeting, Frank Wang dislodged the the fire extinguisher which had been precariously perched above his head, causing it to fall off its hook and hit the ground. At impact, the fire extinguisher began to leak powder around the area at a tremendous rate; the room quickly filled up with noxious dust. Thinking he could handle it, the RA sent the kids back to their rooms, but after realizing that one Wang would not be enough to repair the damage, he pulled the fire alarm.

Not only were people evacuated from the building and refused entry until 11:10 at night, a full hour later, but those unlucky residents of third floor North Ben could not return to their rooms, forcing them to share beds (and even shirts) for the night on the lower floors. Ironically, almost half the students in Frank's hall were squirrels who were nervous and scared of the Wang already on the second night. Ironic also, was that a certain few halls got out of early lights out for the night and never made it up.

Frank Wang, to this day, is still suffering the social consequences of this unforgettable accident. (For instance, a CTY student had once jumped into an Acting Improv circle (of which Frank was the supervising RA) and yelled "Hey, I'm Frank!" while pretending to spray a fire extinguisher as punishment for losing silent football.) (Also, Speakerman and his crew had once delivered Frank Wang a musical request to "Stop! Drop! and Roll!") The Student Talent Show MCs of 2007.2 ran a skit using silly string replaying the actions of the night. Whether that was an attack on the Wang remains to be clarified.

2007.2---Banning of Grass Orgies

At the beginning of session two, grass orgies were officially banned. Site Director Brian explained that they were banned due to the possibility of being trampled. The day of arrival, the Last Orgy was held on the Quad between North Ben and Thomas, minutes before the official start of CTY. In the first week, several people decided to try a legal grass orgy in which they lay seperately on the grass in a large area, not touching each other. Frank Wang told them, "Nice job, guys." As CTY continued, students were able to get around the ban, often by forming less structured groups that sat/lay together in clumps. Some staff members cared, others didn't. Alcove students took to forming a large psuedo-orgy outside the cafeteria during lunch periods. On the last day there were many grass orgies to make up for the ones that had not happened. As of yet we aren't sure if this rule will continue, but it's a terrible stain on CTY and ought to be abolished.