As this week signifies the beginning of a new scholastic year, to some it hasn’t truly begun until the first official dance party. As a student who loves to dance, I share this mentality. Saturday night, I prepared to go dancing in afterHOURS for the first dance night hosted by the the Northeastern African Student Organization.

As my girlfriend and I rounded the corner of the Curry Student Center to reach the entrance to afterHOURS, we were quickly taken aback by the enormous gathering of people waiting to enter the club. As a former student leader who is usually inside completing set-up responsibilities, I know the importance of getting to a party on time to ensure my spot inside. This time I was overtaken by another problem. I noticed most of the students waiting to get in were not enrolled at Northeastern. Last year, we went through issues after the introduction of new dance party rules. Following numerous unfortunate events, we dealt with the decline of the maximum capacity inside parties and the limit of outside students attending our parties, however, there is still no current rule to ensure that Northeastern Students are first priority at our own parties. I was even approached numerous times by students from other schools asking me to sign them in. In fact, it seemed as if most of the students in the front of the line had no way of gaining entrance.

I wonder why Northeastern has not implemented a rule so that priority is given to Northeastern students. Isn’t it fair to do so? Can we not have a time slot where only Northeastern students are permitted into the dance parties and let outsiders in after?

– Marques Crosby is a junior computer engineering major.