I must say, as a response to both Amanda's post and Mrs. Guichon's answer, that I think that David Hawley handled this situation as well as he possibly could have. I am a member of year 32, the same year as four of the five students who were expelled (one was a 3Y0 participant), and at the end of our first year, we explicitly told David as a community that we wanted to see him "lay down the line". We had indeed lived through the Walker era, or at least the conclusion of it, and we were ready for a Director who would support the policies and ideals of the college as best as he could. I do not know the how the whole thing played out, I would say that the actuality lies between Amanda's version and David's version, probably closer to David's. However, what I do know is that the night before "The Five", as they have come to be called, were caught toking up, they were toking up as well. That night they debated amongst themselves, whilst high, at first whether or not to start a fire somewhere on campus, then, when they thankfully managed to convince themselves that that was a horrendous idea, they then wanted to pull a fire alarm, but managed to satisfy themselves with running in to our student fire chief's room, wake him up, and screaming at him that there was a fire in the pool and for him to get up and get the firefighters going. This seems to me to be a ridiculously dangerous situation for the entire campus primarily, and indeed the entire college, for had a fire broken out, and it was shown that students had set it intentionally, we would not have been able to rebuild that building without dipping even further into our already depleted endowment.
I cannot comment on how the administration has handled this situation since they expelled the students in question, but I can say that I think that the policy that the school has is appropriate and was well suited to the task at hand. David followed the rules that we all signed when we came here, and has since shown himself to be nothing but a credit to our organization, time and time again. I have nothing but good words for David Hawley, and I think that the majority of the students on campus would say the same. To be fair, I have not been in Amanda's situation, but I was very close to one of the students who was expelled and miss him terribly, but must defer to our policies, which are both fair, and the only ones which we could accept as an international college. I appreciate your time in reading this and would be happy to respond to any further questions.
Sincerely
Nathan Bowman
Bardstown, KY, USA
LBPC YR 32