An incident at Super Snack on Friday, October 6, the most recent in a series of conflicts initiated by students at the late-night meal, resulted in a card-checker quitting and the director of dining services reminding students to be respectful of Thorne Hall's staff.
Two females, a Bowdoin student and her sister, entered Super Snack around midnight without checking in. The checker alerted Super Snack Coordinator Chris Derbyshire "to say that there were a couple of girls that just went in and wouldn't return to check-in when called," Director of Dining and Bookstore Services Mary Lou Kennedy said.
"He came upon them in the servery with their trays and tried to get them to check-in, but they wouldn't do that or show their ID," Kennedy said. "They were generally non-compliant and I think he got very, very frustrated."
Tim Gamwell '09 is a student employee at Super Snack who did not see the incident but "felt a lot of its effects." Derbyshire told Gamwell that two girls tried to sneak into Super Snack and, when they would not produce identification, made it difficult for him to call Security.
According to Director of Security Randy Nichols, the two females "were approached by a dining staff member and there was an exchange, at times heated," he wrote in an email.
"Security was called to resolve the matter," Nichols added.
After Super Snack closed at 1 a.m. on Saturday, a few students still tried to gain entrance, harassing the checker when she refused to grant it.
"It was just a rough night for both [the checker] and for Chris," Gamwell said.
According to Kennedy, the checker quit, citing undue stress.
The student told Kennedy that she wanted to quit because she did not feel that she was treated very well by some of the students, and said that the stress level was too high to continue.
"A lot of people were just haranguing her to get in after the closing time," Kennedy added. "When she wouldn't open the doors, they said things that weren't very nice to her?obnoxious things."
The checker could not be reached for comment.
On Wednesday, Kennedy posted a message on the campus-wide student digest reminding "Super Snack Devotees and Neophytes" of Thorne's closing time and encouraging them to respect dining services employees.
"PLEASE do not harangue the checker, ram the doors, climb the ramparts or conduct evasive maneuvers to gain admittance!" she wrote.
Although the resignation of Super-Snack card-checkers due to stress is not unheard of, "it usually doesn't come up quite this early in the year?it's usually Ivies Weekend," Kennedy said.
In May, after Ivies Weekend, Kennedy and Bowdoin Student Government President DeRay Mckesson sent out an email to the school entitled "Will Super Snack Continue?" Citing some students' recent belligerent behavior in which they demanded to be let into Thorne long after it had closed, Kennedy and Mckesson asked students to show Derbyshire and his staff the high level of respect they deserve.
"Our regular and student employees have the right to expect a work environment that is safe and free from harassment and mistreatment," they wrote.
"Super Snack has been successful and wildly popular," they explained, but requires a certain level of decorum from students.
Super Snack did continue and remains as "wildly popular" as it was last year.
Super Snack debuted in September 2003 and has garnered high marks from students ever since. Neither Bates College nor Colby College has a similar late-night meal option.