Kingston mayor Mark Gerretsen voiced his displeasure about Queen’s University’s Homecoming over Twitter, generating criticism from students.
This year marked the return of Queen’s Homecoming, which was banned in 2008 due to extreme partying. Homecoming this year is spread out over the weekends of October 5–6 and 19-–20.
Students began responding to Gerretsen after the mayor tweeted at Queen’s principal Daniel Woolf on Oct. 5.
“.@queensprincipal I am standing at William and Aberdeen. I have two words for you: NOT GOOD,” he tweeted.
Gerretsen continued to tweet throughout the weekend, mostly in response to students.
“As a student I find
@MayorOfKingston ‘s #Homecoming tweets pretty disenfranchising. Really don’t appreciate the condescending tone,” read a tweet from a user with the handle @hkallmeyer.
“.@hkallmeyer As the Mayor I find the actions of many @queensu students last night unacceptable. Really don’t appreciate the lack of respect,” the mayor responded, later questioning the behaviour of at least 2,000 students.
The city faced 16 arrests and 133 tickets in the student district on the first homecoming weekend, according to Kingston police.
When a student tweeted asking about the cost of homecoming to the city of Kingston, Gerretsen responded with a figure of $500,000, significantly higher than the $300,000 price facing Kingston police in 2008.
Woolf said in a statement the university would have a better idea of homecoming’s cost in the coming weeks.
“The issue of policing costs is one the university is open to discussing,” Woolf said. “However, Homecoming is not yet over, and it would make sense that we will have a more complete picture of the total costs and benefits of Homecoming to the city after October 20.”
The university declined to comment further.
Responding to requests from students, the Alma Mater Society (AMS) met with Gerretsen to discuss mutual concerns over homecoming and the mayor’s tweets, the student government vice president (university affairs) Thomas Pritchard said.
“We made clear to him that we found the interactions inappropriate and we did suggest that he issue an apology or at the least an acknowledgement that his tone could have been much different,” Pritchard said via email.
Don Rogers is the founder of the Kingston-based Save Our Neighbourhood Action Group, an organization “fed up with the unacceptable behaviour of many Queen’s students.”
He said the quality of life in Kingston suffers as a result of students partying.
“Basically, our goal is to have a quality of life in our neighbourhood that the families of Queen’s students would expect in their neighbourhood in their hometowns,” Rogers, who has lived in the traditionally student-populated area near Queen’s for 35 years, said.
Samantha Putos, who graduated from Queen’s in 2013, said Homecoming is a part of the Queen’s tradition.
“It was just about seeing a lot of the friends I hadn’t seen since last year . . . It’s just a big weekend of a lot of school spirit.”
Queen’s vice-principal (advancement) Tom Harris said in a statement that Homecoming was brought back this year in part because of better behaviour of Queen’s students at informal events.
“Homecoming is a unique and special event for Queen’s and for alumni who, as members of the Queen’s family, see Homecoming as a kind of family reunion,” Harris said. “The decision to bring it back, however, wasn’t one that the Principal made lightly, as I’m sure we all remember why it was suspended in the first place.”
