My four years at Wash. U. have been a period of numerous ups and downs, self-inflicted and otherwise. The University has changed since my arrival; the oozing abscess that was Eliot Hall has been demolished, a new pink castle rising in its place, and the South 40 has been transformed from an unnavigable construction zone into a whimsical St. Louis Disneyland-lite. I have, however, also noticed a disturbing trend over the past four years, and that is a discernible effort on the part of the administration to, in an effort to cut costs and burnish the University’s image, suck some of the life and diversity out of this school.

The class of 2013 is the last that remembers when tobacco was permitted on campus, and we are the last that fondly remembers the smoking Koreans, loitering at all hours outside the library, as well as the freshmen who were perpetually posted-up outside of Lee and Beaumont Houses, dragging on death. Tobacco was subsequently banned in a poorly disguised effort to lower healthcare costs for Wash. U. employees, and the University has homogenized as a result. There is no longer the opportunity to bond with an otherwise-insular community over a common addiction, and thus smokers have been discouraged from attending. This naturally impacts members of lower socio-economic classes more as they are disproportionately more likely to be smokers, and the stereotype of the rich white Wash. U. bubble-dweller has become more accurate.

Similarly, the drug-friendly community, never huge in the freshman class, has been adversely affected. Smokers are more likely to, if not partake in other drugs, at least be more open-minded toward them than are their non-smoking counterparts, and their banishment from campus eliminates an important, progressive viewpoint that the University makes every effort to squelch, the success of which is apparent in the lack of any pro-legalization student group. The University isn’t just promoting a rich, white student body; it wants one that is straightlaced, too.

This is also visible in the University’s violently anti-fraternity policy. Fraternities have been getting kicked off campus for decades for minor infractions, and when in the 1980s Sigma Alpha Mu didn’t want to sell its house so Wash. U. could build Simon Hall, the place mysteriously burned down that summer. This year alone saw the disbanding of Sammy and the suspension of two other fraternities, one for minor hazing and throwing unauthorized parties (the horror)—discovered via questionable means—and another for committing racist activities that the University didn’t bother to check up on until after the fact (hint: no proven racist activities occurred).  The school goes to great pains to limit the expansion of Greek life on campus – the caps on fraternity pledge classes are evidence of that – and this can be chalked up to a desire to cultivate a lightly-partying, exclusively academically-minded student body.  As if, with our bi-annual day drinking, as opposed to every other university on the planet, we were in any danger of being otherwise.

In addition to attacking fraternities, a nexus of drinking and partying, the University has adopted a policy of stifling alcohol consumption. For more than a decade, W.I.L.D. was held on Saturdays until it was moved back to Friday in 2011 to discourage day drinking. Further, students 21 and older are no longer permitted to bring a six-pack of beer to the event, as was the case until my junior year; instead, they are given three free beers, courtesy of the University. It’s nice not to have to pay, but the underlying motive—halve the number of beers to discourage drunkenness and take extra steps in preventing underage drinking—is obvious.

The effect of all of this, of course, is to create a bland, homogeneous student body. Naturally, one can have fun without drinking, smoking or doing other drugs, but is the ability to engage in both so offensive? Unless the University reverses course—and soon—we will be a completely upper-class, elitist, close-minded community with a fun-loving reputation akin to that of the University of Chicago. Of course, that seems to be the University’s goal, and the brilliant part of being a university is that every year 25 percent of potentially disgruntled students—and all of those who remember the more lenient practices of four years prior—disappear into the ether.