Two a.m. on a Sunday morning at Amherst College: TAP is over and the DJ cuts the music ... The host party dorm is often in a state of disarray and more importantly, has dorm damage. But just because TAP is over, doesn’t mean students are ready for bed. After TAPs end, dorm damage can continue to occur. To discuss ways to limit party dorm damage from TAPs, Residential Life RCs met with the Social Council (SoCo) e-board last week to reevaluate SoCo’s dorm damage policy. Under the current policy, SoCo pays for all dorm damage from a party it organizes until 2 a.m. Sunday morning.

While students can individually host parties and events nearly anywhere on campus, Social Council TAPs can only be held in designated spaces. In 2006-07, approved TAP buildings included Keefe Campus Center, Mayo-Smith House, Hitchcock House, Seelye House, Crossett Hall, Stone Hall and Davis Hall.

In the past two years, Mayo, Hitchcock and Seelye have undergone renovation and were therefore removed from the list. To offset these changes, the Administration approved the newly renovated Hamilton House as an additional TAP space. However, due to a large amount of dorm damage, Residential Life later closed Hamilton to TAPs, limiting approved party spaces to the three Socials and Keefe Campus Center.

TAPs such as Homecoming and Screw Your Roommate, which the Triangle formerly hosted, are now held in either Hamilton or the three approved Socials.

This year, SoCo has spent more on dorm damage than in the past two years combined. It is not the volume of dorm damage that has increased, but the cost of specific dorm damage instances, said Kelly King ’08, the Assistant Director of Student Activities and the Keefe Campus Center. The cost of Hamilton’s Homecoming dorm damage was particularly high, as an entire Hamilton floor required refinishing. Residents in the Socials and Hamilton have also faced a high cost of dorm damage this year from individual parties as well.

Currently, SoCo covers dorm damage caused by students at TAPs from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., according to Dean Hannah Fatemi, Director of Student Activities. However, parties usually continue past 2 a.m. and there is often further dorm damage, the cost of which falls on the dorm residents.

In their meeting last week, Residential Life and SoCo discussed how to best revise the current policy. “[Residential Life] and SoCo want to work together so that residents feel comfortable hosting TAPs, however residents of TAP spaces need to take responsibility in the hours following TAP,” said Fatemi. The policy will most likely be revised before the TAP on March 7.

In the meantime, SoCo will host the “Screw Your Roommate” TAP in the Campus Center on Valentine’s Day from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. According to King, the last TAP held in Keefe was the Madonna TAP in 2005. SoCo decided that it would be too much to ask a Social dorm to host multiple TAPs in the same semester.

Still, the dorm damage policy revisions for SoCo’s TAPs do not address the full impact of the College’s 12-year renovation plan. “The renovation process has a sustained impact,” said Dean Torin Moore, Director of Residential Life. While the immediate response to the renovation is selecting a different venue for “Screw Your Roommate,” new and old College dorms that host parties will most likely acquire dorm damage in the future. New dorms, including Seelye and Hitchcock, will most likely require expensive repair, as exemplified by Hamilton’s costly dorm damage last year.

For now, SoCo must work around spatial constraints. The group feels Keefe is the best option for “Screw Your Roommate.” Keefe will most likely sustain some damage with TAP, which SoCo will cover in full. Despite the recent problems associated with TAPs, Fatemi hopes “to carry on the tradition of TAP.”