In print | Published October 2, 2008

The decision not to allow sports teams to host Pub Nite this year — a decision that subsequently pushed the date of the first Pub Nite back until after the senior class officers were elected — was a tremendously devastating blow to the booming social lives of many Swarthmore students. For the first few Thursday nights of the semester, flocks of displaced Pub Nite enthusiasts could be seen wandering campus, at a loss for what to do without their weekly dose of Natty Light. When the newly elected senior class officers hosted the first official Pub Nite last week, joyous yells of Semisonic lyrics filled the air; it was as though the Pub Niters had finally found their way home again. This weekly night of debauchery has become an essential institution of Swarthmore, so much so that some people feel downright uneasy if they go a Thursday night without playing flip-cup or dancing on tables to the hits of the 90s, red Solo cup in hand. While Pub Nite has become thoroughly ingrained in the culture of Swarthmore, however, there is a surprising lack of information about its origins.

Pub Nite is not the result of five kegs mysteriously materializing in Paces one day. In 1995, the senior class officers hosted the first Pub Nite as a fundraiser to help pay for their senior week, the same purpose that it serves today. Although several sources have confirmed that it began in ’95, there is no mention of Pub Nite in any school publications until 1997, suggesting that it may have been a somewhat private affair. In February of 1997, a short-lived variation was introduced, called “Tavern Night,” that was also funded by the senior class and was hosted in place of Pub Nite once a month. Tavern Night was meant to be a classier alternative to Pub Nite and featured expensive, high quality beer, waiters and waitresses and a live band. The party permit that the senior class officers received in order to host the event came with the conditions that it was to be both privately funded and not advertised publicly, which supports the idea that Pub Nites were originally a bit of an undercover operation. “The first Pub Nites were very different; students would sit down and talk and usually only have three or four beers,” Assistant Director of Student Life and Academic Advisor Kelly Wilcox ’97 said. “It was about learning to appreciate good beer and a response to the Beirut and cheap beer you would find at the frats.” Wilcox was a sophomore when the first Pub Nite was held.

It seems that as time progressed, Pub Nite evolved into a more and more boisterous event. Former senior class officer Alice Hershey ’02 said that by the turn of the millennium, it was both “crazy” and “festive,” in contrast to a relaxed conversation held over a few beers. However, the crowd was still different from that of today. “Pub Nite was predominantly juniors and seniors when I was younger,” Hershey said. “I don’t think I ever would have gone as an underclassmen. Thursday was the new Friday, so you could go crazy. By the time you were a junior, you started to realize you had fewer early classes and fewer classes on Fridays, so you went to Pub Nite.” While the crowd was still older, the atmosphere was evolving into something similar to current Pub Nites. “I would describe the atmosphere as more like a bar than a Paces party,” Hershey said. “People would play quarters, hang out.” When asked where the beer of her time fell on the spectrum between classy and Natty, Hershey said, “It varied a lot. There was always at least a keg of Yuengling, and then we would mix it up due to finances or taste. Every once in a while we would stoop as low as Natty Light.” The music selection, which is so essential to Pub Nite today, was usually a mix of alternative and classic rock.

Since the early ’00s, Pub Nite culture has simply become a more ritualized and complex tradition. Somewhere along the way, flip-cup appeared as the most popular drinking game, although the quarters and card games of the middle years still remain as well. Somewhere along the line the quality of beers seems to have downgraded, due to demand and financial reasons, to a consistent 4-6 kegs of Natty Light. The music of Pub Nite has become a phenomenon of its own, most likely starting around 2006 when the role of DJ was opened up to volunteers from the student body, a right previously reserved for senior class officers.

Peter Gardner ’08 and Andrew Fieldhouse ’08 claim credit for being the first ones to play “Closing Time” as the last song during their junior year, a tradition that has already come to be a symbol of Pub Nite in itself. “American Pie” has become another staple song, played usually sometime towards the end of Pub Nite, and always faithfully accompanied by chants of “Die, die, die!” each time before the refrain. Gardner, a legendary Pub Nite enthusiast, said of the spirit of recent Pub Nites, “The joy of pub night lies in its cathartic influence; it is a release from the regularity of Swarthmore and the occasional mental and academic claustrophobia of the campus. Yes, it is still on campus (in Paces), and yes, it is still with the same people you see around all the time, but Pub Nite is something different altogether. It is a place of unadulterated release. And that is a good thing.”

Clearly, Pub Nite has evolved greatly through the ages, but certain elements remain the same: the presence of beer, its location in Paces, the strange misspelling of the word night, but most of all its therapeutic nature. Whether through a peaceful conversation held over beers or a rousing verse sung from a tabletop, Pub Nite has always provided an outlet for students to release their academic stress and celebrate the coming weekend. And that is a good thing.

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