Halloween is a notorious holiday on college campuses. It is the night where everyone dresses in ridiculous attire, and, traditionally, many women wear as little clothing as possible. Saturday night at Vanderbilt, however, looked slightly different. Maybe it is just a part of the changes that are coming to our school, but the attire worn by the Vanderbilt community has become increasingly conservative.

If we are talking about the Vanderbilt “work hard, play hard” mentality, this weekend’s festivities were a win for the “work hard” column. Costumes generally tended to be toned down from previous years. I saw a much larger proportion of Teletubbies and the like rather than Daisy Dukes. That is not to say I didn’t see a fair share of Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders on frat row (was there some sort of sale that I missed out on?), but compared to past experiences, the costumes were low key. The age of the slutty Reindeer appears to be coming to a close in Vandy Land.

Now, some off years can be attributed to cold weather, forcing the faint of heart to begrudgingly cover up (although I thought that was what leggings are for), but it was in the low 50s, so that could not have been the cause. I guess there is an inverse correlation between Playboy bunny tails and SAT scores.

It is actually pretty funny that everyone gets so excited and dressed up for Halloween. Last time I checked, pretty much every frat party on campus is themed. The opportunity to dress up at Vanderbilt as a schoolgirl (without principles, of course) isn’t exactly rare. Still, for some reason Halloween is THE night to go out and THE night to wear as little clothing as possible. Halloween was our big chance to show the naysayers that we  can still party with the best of the SEC. But, despite costume advise in Versus, Vanderbilt missed the memo this year, further supporting the argument that Vanderbilt is losing its “play hard” attitude.

Don’t worry, everything isn’t lost. The creativity of costumes was definitely up. I saw a ceiling fan (“Go Ceilings!” Get it?), a gold digger (only this time with a shovel) and an entire Super Mario Party. We have begun to forego our partying traditions for clever and imaginative costumes. Instead of partying like Pac-Man Jones and making it rain, we dress up like his video-game counter part and his ghost enemies. One Pac-Man is in and out of court, the other one stays squarely placed in the basement of a 40-year-old man living with his mother.

This Halloween was a signal of changes coming to Vanderbilt. With academic standards on the rise, so is self-respect. As we get smarter, for better or for worse, our costumes get smarter, too.

—Ryan Sullivan is a junior in Peabody College. He can be reached at ryan.c.sullivan@vanderbilt.edu.