Frolics 2024
BORGs have been banned by the administration, causing reflection on overall alcohol policies.
BORGs have been officially banned under the College alcohol policy, per a recent announcement from the Student Activities Office. BORGs, a common accessory during this upcoming weekend’s Spring Frolics, are a mixed drink made in a plastic gallon jug that typically contains water, flavored drink mix and alcohol. The ban is the latest development in what some students perceive as an ongoing shift in the administration’s attitudes toward alcohol on campus.
Director of Student Rights and Responsibilities Mak Tompkins was hired in 2022 with the mandate to revise the Student Handbook, which contains the alcohol policy, as it had stayed largely the same since the 1970s.
“The old version of the handbook (pre-2024), as it was explained to me upon hiring, had not been thoroughly revised since roughly the 1970s and thus was inaccessible to students. Most people did not interact with it or read it at all, and when they did, they were left with more questions than answers because it was written mostly in legal jargon and did not reflect the current generation of college students,” Tompkins said over email. “Clarity and modernization became two important themes of the student handbook project.”
New language in the 2024-2025 Code, which includes “no alcohol may be provided from common containers or in large quantities including but not limited to: borgs…” was added to modernize the code, according to Tompkins.
BORG stands for black out rage gallon. They are homemade and it can be easy to lose track of how much alcohol is poured into a jug. When students share drinks or take sips from others that they didn’t make, it can be impossible to know how much alcohol you are consuming. For these reasons, banning BORGs may seem like a no-brainer from an administrative viewpoint. However, some students feel as though the administration’s focus is misplaced.
“I think there’s this element of policing that feels a bit like posturing, like it feels like they’re doing it because they can and because the name [sounds] bad,” Isabelle Polgar ‘25 said. “If I heard that people were drinking blackout rage gallons, I too would want to ban it. However, the reality of BORGs is very different [from] the name of it. I think that people are going to drink no matter what, and banning it just feels like a waste of time and resources.”
Over the course of her four years at Davidson, Polgar described what she’s seen as the implementation of a stricter attitude surrounding drinking on campus.
“Drinking culture has been a lot more institutionalized and policed,” Polgar said. “I’m thinking about wristbands and swiping your CatCard [at parties] and needing an ID just to get a cup at Nummit, but also the imposition of trying to get alcohol banned from the Passover Seder. It’s like this assumption of inherent irresponsibility when it comes to drinking.”
The mention of banning alcohol at the Passover Seder was in reference to the Jewish Student Union’s annual Community Seder on April 12. Per Jewish tradition, four cups of wine are served at the seder. Prior to this year’s seder it was unclear if wine would be allowed at all, however the issue was ultimately resolved and participants were allowed one cup, pre-poured by members of the Chaplains’ Office. Polgar, the former president of the Jewish Student Union, saw this as further evidence of tightening restrictions on alcohol and is not alone in this view.
“My friends and I were talking about how the drinking rules and expectations from the administration and from Campo [campus police] have changed since our freshman year,” Piper Suffolk ‘25 said. “That’s not just the BORGs, but also with not being able to bring your own cups to parties on the court and all of that. I think generally, a lot of the energy around drinking has made it kind of the opposite of what I think drew a lot of people to the party scene at Davidson in the first place, where I think drinking felt very accessible in a way that made it a lot safer.”
Polgar and Suffolk’s position that the administration’s attitude toward drinking has shifted during their time as students is not totally misplaced. The April 17 email announced the policy change in reference to an “ongoing commitment to reducing high-risk drinking and creating safer campus environments.”
When asked about what else this commitment entails, Tompkins referred to additional PCC, Student Life and Student Health and Well-Being policies.
“The College has an obligation and federal responsibility to ensure our campus community is engaging in safe and legal alcohol use,” Tompkins said. “As for Davidson’s ongoing commitment to this, I’ll offer that it can be seen in the Risk Management Trainings and practices in Student Activities such as: providing food at PCC parties, wristbanding, scanning IDs, etc.”
The ban is campus-wide and applies to all on-campus events, but it is especially topical due to the popularity of BORGs during Frolics. The email announcing the ban was sent with the subject line: “The Countdown to Spring Frolics is On.” Frolics is planned by the Union Board, alongside the Student Activities Office. While not involved in alcohol policy or procedure, Union Board President Davis Varnado ‘25 was aware of the ban before it was announced.
“It’s promoting this sort of blackout culture, which we don’t really want to have on campus,” Varnado said. “Union Board’s goal and Student Activities’s goal as a whole is to make student programming safe and inclusive to all students. I think this, in their mind, was definitely one way to help eliminate some risk and make things more welcoming to all students.”
While acknowledging efforts to create a safe environment for all students, Polgar emphasized that the administration should not lose sight of existing strengths.
“I feel like the Student Activities Office already does a lot, like handing out food and water bottles on the day of [Frolics],” Polgar said. “I also think that it’s [Davidson is] already pretty safe in comparison to a lot of other colleges and universities I visited,” Polgar said. “We shouldn’t discount our progress.”