Written by Alessandra Hickson
There isn’t much consensus on just what exactly Public Safety busts people for. Sure, there are the Public Safety logs, published faithfully every week in the Mount Holyoke News, the student-run newspaper, but those are filled mostly with accounts of suspicious males being escorted off campus, intoxicated or ill students being transported to the Health Center, and the occasional group of students who light a box on fire and then leave the area. Mount Holyoke does have a drug and alcohol policy, but few students take the time to read it, and many violations go unnoticed by Public Safety. If your party is too loud or otherwise attracts attention, you might get busted for underage drinking if they come to break it up, but otherwise, it’s easy not to get caught.
However, don’t take this as a sign that MHC Public Safety is lax. This is generally a dry campus. Alcohol is not a particularly visible feature of campus life—students who do drink tend to do so discreetly—and there are many who don’t drink at all. Parking tickets are, on the other hand, common. It’s pretty easy to get one, even if you thought you were going to get away with leaving your car parked in the no-parking zone in front of your dorm for five minutes while you ran in to grab something. While most of what Public Safety cites students for is pretty minor, it’s good to know they’re around should they really be needed.