To the Editor:

By Thomas Berman, CC '04
David Jeffrey Soules, CC '03

The authors are the Poet Laureate and Quartermaster, respectively, of the
Columbia University Marching Band.  

                    Reports of Orgo Night's demise are greatly exaggerated. In an undergraduate
                    community constantly decried for its lack of a collegiate atmosphere, Orgo
                    Night stands alone as an important student tradition. It began at about the
                    time of George Rupp's first eating club kegger at Princeton. The Band
                    marched through the library corridor playing fight songs to rouse the students
                    from their collective book-addled stupor. In the early '80s, when Cyndi
                    Lauper was walking the earth and singing songs about masturbation, a script
                    was added to the event. It consisted of a few hastily conceived jokes
                    scribbled on a box of Entenmanns's cookies. In the spring of 2000, Orgo
                    Night reached its peak as a student mega-event, with over 1,000 undergrads
                    cramming Butler Library following a ridiculously effective advertising
                    campaign. Between 1980 and 2000, Orgo Night went off successfully 40
                    times. One would be hard pressed to find another campus event with such a
                    consistent track record, and a single hiccup in this record does not mean that
                    the tradition will end. Indeed, the pulled fire alarm should assuage the library's
                    doubts concerning safety--the student evacuation of the library went smoothly
                    and safely.

                    We will continue to fight vigorously to keep this tradition alive. If this means
                    the tradition must evolve, so be it. Orgo Night was born without a crowd and
                    can be reborn without a crowd. But the Administration can stop it no more
                    than they can synthesize community spirit or retain English professors. As the
                    CUMB, we have survived years of meddling, embattlement, and active
                    threats to our existence. Through it all, our traditions continue. Orgo Night
                    will end not when the Administration says it does, nor when the Spectator
                    says it does. It will end when we say it does.

                    Long live Orgo Night. 

Another Article Responding to Staff editorial

                    Consistent and Spectacular Orgo Night is Worth Fighting For

                    To the Editor:

                    So Orgo Night is dead? Unbelievable. Utterly ludicrous. And we certainly
                    will be ''sad to see the passing of Orgo Night as a late-night library tradition.''
                    But right now I'm far more annoyed by the apparent demise of any spirit or
                    backbone on this campus.

                    Come on, Spectator! What the hell?! Since when did this become the
                    campus that just rolls over whenever the Administration screws up royally?
                    When did the Spec just start nodding complacently at the abuses of the
                    powers that be? When did we stop fighting? 

                    If we had this kind of Spec and this kind of student apathy, Gym Crow would
                    have been built because no one would have bothered to stand up and say it
                    was wrong. Well guess what everyone, Spec included, the bloody
                    Administration is wrong again. And all we do is simply stand by and watch
                    the band's--the University's--traditions become castrated by an incompetent
                    and ignorant administration that wouldn't know what students wanted if we
                    took to spray-painting our demands on their precious Volvos daily.

                    No, this is not the time to look wistfully back and remember Orgo Night. This
                    is the time to actually come together as some vaguely human campus and
                    actually demand that we be treated better. This is the time to flood Rupp's
                    and other officials' mail boxes with angry letters, this is the time for the student
                    body to actually stop whining about what's wrong with Columbia and to
                    actually come together and support the band in order to make this a better
                    place.

                    It's a sad day when we just start letting the Administration slowly steal
                    whatever traditions and spirit we have, it's even sadder when the only people
                    around willing to fight for anything are the ISO.

                    Robert Fett, SEAS '02