Many students on campus may find themselves in a similar situation during the weekends: they are bored out of their minds, doomscrolling on social media for hours and even, for some, the weekends mean going home on Friday or earlier and coming back on Sunday. That can make Elizabethtown College the ‘ghost college,’ as described by some, where the dining halls and dorms go silent and walking around campus is peaceful but almost ominous.

Part of the reason that students may not stay on campus is that they do not have a solid friend group and have nothing to do on the weekends. Even if there is an occasional event over the weekend, most events happen during the week.

That being said, even if the campus did offer more to do over the weekends, there is no promise that that would decrease the number of people going home as they may be going home for their own personal or financial reasons. The issue is more complex than simple boredom. People often plan time with their families for the weekends, and that may be the only time they get to see them outside of breaks.

Sophomore education major Maddie Fauth explained her multitude of reasons behind going home throughout her two years:. “I used to go home because I worked, but now I like being at home. I like having a balance between living here and living on campus.”

In addition, students may use their weekends to work on or off campus, engage in the schoolwork they have fallen behind on or plan their own excursions. For this reason, it may not even be smart to make events for the weekends and interrupt the planned weekend that people want to have.

“Over the weekend, I personally use the time to catch up on homework and other things for class. But, when I do not have classwork, I like to use the free weekend to schedule a game night with my friends and have good bonding time. Especially considering I only have two years left on campus,” junior electrical engineering major Madison ‘Rocky’ Stewart said.

There are efforts being made by the Office of Student Activities (OSA) to engage students on the weekends and increase the engagement of students.

“We typically do events almost every other weekend and some are filled because of Homecoming and traditional events, so OSA does not host. However, we try to advertise the events through the OSA socials and post it in the BSC,” Assistant Coordinator of OSA and junior student Aaron Oliver said in response to questions about what weekend efforts are made.

For more major events, OSA has Jayfest and Bingo coming up as well as plenty of others that are advertised through the banners, social media and calendars sent out every two months. Mainly, weekend events through OSA and other departments fall on Friday nights aside from the major weekends like Homecoming. However, it is important to note that these events that are more major appeal more to alumni and families than students, and many students may go home on homecoming weekend in response to the additional business if they are not involved in one of the events going on.

If decreasing the amount of quietness on campus matters to students, then they need to engage especially with the weekend events that currently occur to show the campus and those who plan events that they are putting their resources into the right place and encourage further events.

For students who share the concern of making plans on the weekends, there is always “The Weekender” email sent out every Thursday which gives a basic outline of things to get up to both on and off campus from Thursday to Sunday that can be a good starting point. It includes not only events on campus but also sports games and what is going on around Elizabethtown.