Queer Union organizers intended this year’s Homocoming Dance to be a liberating venue to celebrate tolerance and acceptance.

But after three ambulances visited campus within an hour in a pattern that Dean of Students Laurie Hamre called “disturbing,” questions surfaced concerning the effect of Homocoming on the student body, the greater outside community and the Queer Union (QU) itself.

According to Hamre, all of the ambulances came for students who were at the dance, and all three were treated for excessive consumption of alcohol.

“It was the first time we’ve had three calls” in about an hour, Director of Security Terry Gorman said. Gorman was the on-call member of the campus Crisis Team on Friday night.

Because the St. Paul Emergency Services Department is understaffed due to recent budget cuts, Gorman said that the paramedic captain was extremely concerned about both the frequency of calls from Macalester and the resulting smaller number of ambulances available to the greater St. Paul community.

Paramedics were “disgusted at having to come to campus three times in an hour,” Hamre said.

In addition to concerns from the off-campus community, Hamre also received numerous complaints from custodians about the amount of vomit in residence halls. The problem of “too much drinking and expecting others to clean it up,” she said, points out the importance of responsible decision-making and behavior.

“We’re concerned about this behavior,” Gorman said. “People want to have a good time, but they need to know how to do this responsibly.”

The controversy within QU regarding the dance has persisted for several years, according to Rita Van Allen ’06, who organized the pre-dance fashion show. Homocoming, formerly known simply as “QU,” is an annual event. “We tried to make it safer this year,” Van Allen said. She added that she was concerned about both excessive drinking and the potential for sexual assaults. “People should not see the event as an excuse to be irresponsible,” she said.

QU renamed the dance “Homocoming” in an effort to separate the organization from the dance, said QU organizer Adrianne Pontarelli ’04.

QU member Mikey McNamara ’05 criticized the shift away from queer acceptance. “The dance has really become less about the queer community on the campus and more about the rest of campus… appropriating its liberatory qualities into a drunken carnival,” McNamara said.

Van Allen also said she thought that Coming Out Week is overshadowed by the dance, distorting further QU’s original agenda.

But some students viewed Coming Out week events as an effective way to communicate QU’s message. Kenyon DeVault ’06 said he thinks that the week “reinforced the dance’s message.”

Many students also defend the dance primarily for the entertainment the dance provides. Lizz Weber ’05 called the dance the “biggest event [of the year] on campus.”

“QU is always crazy and exciting,” Dave Lerner ’06 said.

DeVault agreed. “It’s fun to have most of the campus at one event,” he said. “Also, I like to get dressed up and dance.”

Sara Kiener ’06 said that students drink to participate in the sexually-charged experience with fewer inhibitions. “The general theme is sex, and the sex is what causes the tendency to drink, not the other way around,” she said.

Weber disconnected drinking from the specific event itself. “I think any social gatherings that involve a large part of the student body on any college campus in the country are inevitably going to have a drinking focus,” she said.

Hamre called for broader conversations with students, resident advisors, hall directors and Queer Union to understand drinking at Homocoming and other campus dances.

“People were obviously drinking before the dance,” Gorman said. “Somehow we’ve got to get students to be more aware and more supportive.”

“This campus is so privileged that sometimes students forget about the outside world,” Van Allen said. “It’s haunting to see the liberal arts college student taken away in an ambulance.”