Kiko Lancastre ‘26 was in Sintra, Portugal for winter break when he received a “written warning” from Davidson’s Residence Life Office on Dec. 22 about a game table stored outside his Armfield Complex apartment, in response to a violation of RLO policy 61 days earlier, on Oct. 10.
According to a copy of RLO’s email obtained by The Davidsonian, Martin Court area coordinator Nic Capano observed a large wooden game table outside Armfield 101, where Lancastre lives. Capano informed Lancastre that he was in violation of the Martin Court Apartment Housing Agreement and invited him to an optional meeting to discuss the incident.
“Although not required, you are invited to meet with me to talk about this issue. During this time, I can (1) summarize pertinent information from the report, (2) give you an opportunity to respond to the report, and (3) collect information to help determine if alternative ways to resolve the issue are appropriate. If I do not hear from you within 5 business days of this letter, I will consider this as a closed matter,” Capano wrote.
The warning did not specify how RLO would resolve the situation if Lancastre declined to meet. Lancastre reached out to his roommates, Thomas Crough ‘26, Ross Hope ‘26, Lars Oehler ‘26 and Jack Srinivasan ‘26. All had received the same email and did not know how to respond.
“The report said if we didn’t respond ‘the matter would be closed’ which we thought made the most sense given there wasn’t anything we could do since it was break,” Crough said. He assumed they would deal with the situation once they were back on campus.
When Crough returned to campus on January 16th, the tables were gone. Lancastre contacted RLO. “Nobody told us anything about what happened to them at first,” he said. “We tried reaching out to RLO. We had a meeting with Capano […] and he told us that he was the one who personally disassembled the tables, and someone took them away.”
Capano redirected a request for an interview to RLO Associate Director Ivy Barefoot, who declined to comment. “While we appreciate the interest, Residence Life is unable to conduct interviews at this time,” Barefoot wrote in an email to The Davidsonian.
Barefoot attached a copy of the Martin Court Apartments Housing Agreement. “This agreement was provided to all Martin Court and Armfield residents at the beginning of the academic year, with the expectation that each resident review and sign it,” Barefoot wrote.
The agreement states that “Tables used for drinking games are not permitted in residence hall rooms, apartments, or community spaces, including the Armfield Courtyard. This includes hand-built or modified tables that are clearly intended for drinking games.”
RLO outlines the consequences for failure to uphold apartment cleanliness expectations. The consequence for first offenses is a written warning—what F101 residents received. Neither the lease agreement nor Capano’s written warning indicated that failure to meet with RLO would result in property removal.
Ezra Steinman ‘28 is chair of the Student Government Association’s Food and Housing Committee. He was confused by RLO’s decision to take action over winter break and emailed Capano looking for answers. Capano did not respond.
“I was trying to clarify why the letter asking for the removal of tables was sent on December 22nd, which is during winter break and there was no possible way for them to be removed by the students,” Steinman said. “The letter did not say the tables would be removed[…] it wasn’t specific about what would happen if the students chose to meet with RLO or not. It was just too vague.”
Steinman said that the situation is an example of RLO not prioritizing student interest. “I think they put restrictions, rules, regulations before anything else and one of the things that I’ve been trying to do […] is to encourage them to at least take student input into consideration when making decisions and be as transparent as possible. And they’re just not doing it.”
Students are similarly frustrated. Lancastre does not understand why the rule is present in the first place. “First of all, if it’s about the drinking games that may or may not happen on the tables, […] the people who live at F101 […] we are all 21,” Lancastre said. “It’s happened for so many years and it’s always been something that is allowed … and all of a sudden it’s not allowed anymore?”
Armfield Courtyard is the only open consumption space on campus. Prohibiting game tables tightens the rules on an already highly regulated drinking culture at Davidson. “It just doesn’t make sense, for a lot of us. We just don’t know why it’s a whole thing all of a sudden,” Lancastre said.
Will Capps ‘27 is president of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He noted that the tables were paid for by students and, therefore, their property.
“We did spend five hundred or six hundred bucks on supplies for the tables out of pocket, so that’s really irritating,” Capps said. “We used some of those tables to eat on in the house, too.”
The Armfield residents are similarly frustrated by the loss of property.
“I am like angry and annoyed that they were able to destroy these tables we had. That we made, we owned, we paid for them,” Lancastre said. “We paid for each individual part and we built them. All of a sudden, when we’re not on campus to, I guess maybe to defend ourselves, keep our property, they just went up behind our backs and destroyed all of them. […] It seemed like a very angry and kind of immature thing to do.”
One student, Mike Liu ‘26, is frustrated by the loss of tables for a different reason.
He made one of the tables during his freshman year as a new member of KSIG. “Me and this other junior at the time were working on painting the surface, or table, and it took us like two weeks,” Liu said. “He was also a studio art major and he did a bunch of digital design and we ended up setting up a projector in the KSIG house and painting it collectively, as a group project.”
Liu hoped to save parts of the table and create a new piece out of it by the end of the year.
“It is something that’s pretty significant to me and my experience at Davidson, the fact that it was something I made my freshman year,” Liu said. “I was hoping for it to be like kind of rundown [so] that people don’t really use it anymore by the time I had my [senior art exhibition], so I was hoping to take it down myself to turn it into an art piece.”
Liu knows that RLO was not aware of the table’s significance. “I understand it from the perspective of RLO, they obviously don’t have all the info on the specific meanings behind each wooden gaming table. But it’s still something that we all collectively put so much time and energy into and it’s definitely more than just a table that we used to play drinking games.”
Liu emailed RLO asking where his table is on January 16th and has yet to hear back. Liu plans to visit the office in person to get a response. At the time of publication, Lancastre and his roommates have no information about the status of their property.
In the meantime, Capps said, “we’ll build new ones and keep them at the house.”