Spring Weekend is the time when Brown becomes Brown. Contrary to the tree-hugging, ganja-loving stereotypes so often seen on shows like The O.C., Brown isn't really all that subversive most of the time — at least when it comes to drugs. "It's really difficult to generalize how much people use drugs at Brown. It depends on the circles you run in — I would say the mean and the median are really different," says an anonymous Brown junior.
But there's something about that iconic weekend in late April that changes things — something about the weather perhaps, or the brief respite from academic stress before finals, or maybe it's as simple as the fact that music just sounds better when everyone's a little faded. For whatever reason, Spring Weekend has become an anticipated fable of downright debauchery. "On Spring Weekend, it's like everyone just wakes up and says 'Oh my god, we should be Brown now,'" the junior says.
The tradition began in 1950, having evolved from "All-Campus Weekend" and Junior Week and Junior Prom. And from the sound of it, it was a pretty abstinent affair, featuring athletic contests, an inter-fraternity sing, and various dances. By the late '50s and early '60s, however, the weekend had come to resemble more closely the four-day sh*tshow we all know and love today. In fact, Professor Barrett Hazeltine, who arrived at Brown in the fall of 1958, describes the Spring Weekend of his early days at Brown as nothing less than "a drunken brawl." That all changed, he says, with none other than Ira Magaziner, father of the New Curriculum and UCS president in 1968-9, who hoped to turn the weekend into a classier affair by bringing in acts like Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Nonetheless, in 1984 the University began providing off-duty state troopers equipped with optional breathalyzers in order to encourage responsible drinking. In recent years, as many as ten students have been EMSed during the rum-and sun-soaked weekend.
And Spring Weekend is so much a part of Brown's history that it has its own traditions and its own expectations. Even freshmen who have never been here for Spring Weekend feel the pressure surrounding that most secular of holidays on College Hill. "I think people [do drugs and party on Spring Weekend] because they want to carry on the supposed tradition and reputation," says an anonymous first-year.
But what exactly does this tradition entail? It seems like there's a lot of hype surrounding Spring Weekend, but maybe not that many actual specifics to the rumors. "I've heard that there is a lot of drug use, but I've heard more about the parties than the drugs," the first-year says. Perhaps the answer is that students just aren't that discriminatory when it comes to Spring Weekend activities. They search for a way to prolong the intoxication, whether it comes in the form of another Miller High Life or a puff of opium. "It's more acceptable to wake up and smoke than it is to start drinking in the morning — you can't really be drunk all weekend," says the junior.
There's a fun improvisational challenge to Spring Weekend, a noncompetitive student-wide urge to make do with what's available. "Freshman year I saw a girl take a line of E off of her Brown student ID card during the Flaming Lips concert," says an anonymous junior female. Maybe this is the real spirit of Spring Weekend — haphazard, resourceful, communicative. Students come out from their perches in dimly lit Rock carrels and embrace the sun, or at least the knowledge that they aren't really required to reenter those bastions of academia for the next few days. Spring Weekend is when we become the Brown we want to be, the Brown that shares, that parties together, and that stays together. Hopefully that's a tradition that won't go away anytime soon.
