As of next Spring, the College is moving Outpost services to the new Campus
Center on the offchance that such a change will better serve students' needs. The Union
Café and the Outpost will merge into one space in order to cut costs for both facilities.
And we thought our isolated little college functioned independently from the outside
world, any correlation between the two being, of course, arbitrary. Not so. Davidson
Administrators, too, are money-conscious and expansion-oriented. Ever since we got all
this money from the Knoblochs to create such an impressive, progressive space, the
philosophy sweeping the campus seems to be "Put it in the New Union." So it goes with
the Outpost, too.

More seriously, combining Outpost and Café services will prove more efficient,
both labor-wise and money-wise. For sixteen hours a week, both grills are operating
simultaneously, only a few hundred yards from each other. Davidson's own personal
merger will also open up enough space so that the College can diversify its currently
homogenous deep-fryer and grease-grill repertoire. Talk of a pizza oven, a pasta machine,
and hot wells (to keep pre-prepared dishes like macaroni and cheese warm) is
proliferating at the Campus-Center-planning meetings. The menus for the Outpost and
Café will retain their individuality despite the shared space.

What is this odd little game the College is playing? The Union Café and the
Outpost can't exist in the same space as separate entities--after the switch, such a
distinction will only remain in our minds in expressions like "Outpost nachos" and
"Union sandwich." Like an eighteenth-century bride, the Outpost will quickly lose its
legal identity upon its marriage to the Union facilities. Its innate attractiveness will also
diminish severely once the virginity of its food service is gone, as hardly anyone will
have reason to go there anymore. The fact is, the Outpost as we know it will cease to
exist although the building will still be there. The happy green light will no longer guide
your staggering self to warm cheese and safety. No, you will have to find your way
farther up the hill and make your way across a large, open, "community" space in order to
fill your stomach with something other than alcohol.

The importance of community and pleasant gathering space make Davidson the
friendly place it is, but is the Outpost scene one that needs the sort of massive group-
mixing that the mall-like space of the new Union will encourage? The Outpost already
boasts a special brand of community found nowhere else on campus. It's a space on the
Court that isn't Court-affiliated so that independents and members of fraternities and
eating houses can come together and counteract alcohol poisoning as a community under
one neutral roof. Non-drinkers, too, enjoy the lively, crowded scene and go there to
munch, socialize, and observe drunk people. So often during our daily lives are we
segregated by Court affiliation, class, race, and sex that the Outpost is both a lovely and
needed blip in the established Davidson social structure. Of course, it is exactly this all-
inclusive atmosphere that the new Union is striving to achieve, only on a much larger
scale. This could be good. But can it absorb the Outpost's special brand of student
socializing along with every other form of people-mixing it will swallow, from the Post
Office boxes to the Union Café to an expanded exercise room? Or will the Outpost's
unique flavor get lost in the enthusiastic mixture, remaining only as a ghost attached
implicitly to a plate of nachos or a quesadilla served in the androgynous new Union
Café? Housing the Outpost services in addition to everything else isn’t necessary for the
new Union to become the all-inclusive community space it was designed to be; in fact,
the Campus Center may just be better off without it, just as the Outpost may serve the
students better as a secluded unit.

The Outpost's role as a gathering space that promotes unhindered interaction
among students seems to benefit from its small, closed-off location on the Court.
Because many of its patrons are of the intoxicated, loud sort, especially on weekends, a
wide-open, all-campus space may not be an attractive place for students who normally
venture to the Outpost. For partying people, a small, intimate setting in which everyone is
either inebriated or prepared for interaction with the inebriated is a pleasant place to be.
Staggering through a large, open space would be less appealing, however, especially if
one is carrying on foolishly or in danger of becoming sick. Furthermore, the a much
smaller percentage of the people there would be drunk, especially on Wednesday and
Thursday nights, when the Outpost caters to those who party after finishing their work. If
you're sloppy drunk, or just bright-eyed with a beer buzz and looking for a good time on a
weeknight, will you want to walk through a brightly lit, very public space with people
studying and holding meetings around you to get to the food? Although the new Union
won't be as far from the Court as the current Union, it's a different world: a world that
sees the stress of daily routine, a world that isn't so attractive to relaxing, tipsy people.
The Outpost, conveniently located in the middle of the busiest part of the Court, doesn't
pierce the relaxing nature of a weeknight Court party with textbooks and fluorescent
activity flyers; rather, it continues the party atmosphere outside of the frats and eating
houses in a place where all students can socialize. When the Outpost is the place where
students go to get away from it all, would the Campus Center, which intends to include it
all, be somewhere the students could escape to? Instead of venturing out of their party
worlds, students may just stay at their respective Court houses or retreat to their dorm
rooms thus detracting from community cohesiveness rather than adding to it.

The Outpost is not only a secluded, non-academic space, but also a convenient
one: it is located in the middle of the busiest part of the Court. Yes, the new Union will
be a shorter walk from the general Court area than the current Union is, but when you
look at where the concentration of houses is (see map), you can tell that the Outpost is
significantly closer. Because of its proximity, it has become a haven for those who are in
danger of alcohol poisoning. Friends can easily coax sick, wobbling friends to the always
visible, well lit Outpost for some food and some rest. It has prevented many hospital
trips, no doubt. The new Union will be, in many cases, much farther, often uphill,
possibly less attractive, and therefore less viable an option, especially when one of your
elbows is constantly being wrenched to the ground because of the forces of gravity acting
upon your unwieldy friend Bob. When he’s been drinking too much and you need to get
him away from the party, is he going to be lured by the non-Court scene at the likely
faraway Union? Can you possibly assuage him with the words, "C’mon, Bob, let’s go
check our Post Office Boxes"?

The administration hopes so. Since the new Union will be the only place to get
food on weekend nights, students will have to flock there and thus might transfer the
lively social world of the Outpost to the open "community" space with them. Yet will the
nice, multi-million dollar Union be able to handle the mess? What if someone pukes on
something important? The College should be mindful that it’s shoving its wildest,
drunkest students directly into the public eye, and such mixing with regular campus life
as is supposed to occur in the mammoth Campus Center on weekend nights could be as
volatile as the ventral combination of a forty-ounce and straight Absolut. Perhaps the
College hopes that sudden visibility will tame the beast that is the Davidson party scene,
or that by moving the food up the hill, a chunk of the social life might follow. Or perhaps
they just got a lot of money for the new Union and wanted to put it to good use so that the
ATC of Generous Donations wouldn’t reclaim any remaining funds.

In any case, drinking will occur no matter how the campus or the social calendar
is arranged, so it’s best to keep the intoxicated happy and out of the hospitals. If they can
mingle amongst the 900-room concert-goers, the late-night exercisers, the movie-
watchers, and the random studiers, then wonderful. If not, the Outpost should remain
open as a grill; an extra Union social effort that shouldn’t drain too much from the
Campus Center’s unprecedented incessant activity.