The Meridian Coffee House is a student-run organization that acts as a venue for the music and art scene at the College of William and Mary. Below is the account of Gavin Aquin Hernández and Carmen Honker’s first time experiencing live music at the venue during Homecoming Weekend 2019.

Walking into the Brafferton at the College of William and Mary, it is clear that President Katherine Rowe has already made her mark after just one year at the College. She points out the art that covers her walls, from an Auguste Rodin sculpture to calligraphy piece drawn by students. According to Rowe, each is equal in value. She speaks thoughtfully, clearly aware of her significance in the community.

In the middle of a lukewarm night about a month ago, a group of friends and I trespassed onto the Crim Dell Amphitheatre. Crossing the triple-layered yellow rope felt how I’d imagine stepping into a boxing ring for a welterweight bout might feel… Something on the other end of those menacing “DANGER DO NOT ENTER” signs fastened to the rope I found a bit ironic: no clear and obvious sense of impending doom.

I began this story with pretty close to an outsider’s perspective on Williamsburg’s bar scene. I enjoy going out occasionally, but large crowds of loud people often make me uncomfortable rather than helping me let loose, and I tend to stick to the fruity-mixed-drinks-and-wine section of most drinks menus. In other words, I am not used to bar crawls.

This summer, I spent 31 days volunteering with the College of William and Mary’s American-Bosnian Collaboration Project in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Project, the oldest international service trip at the College, began in 1998 when a visiting Bosnian scholar visited campus to teach a course about Yugoslavia’s political disintegration.

Clique clique,
The white shone bright,
The politest of no's,
We don't accept you tonight.

The world outside furiously rolls along the pane of laminated glass like snapshots on an everlasting film reel. For now, the sequence features an anonymous roadside corn field, but that’s bound to change as we move along the road.

When I was a little girl, I thought doors had feelings. The ones with peeling paint and duct-taped mail slots felt bad about themselves. The doors painted red, wearing golden handles were snobbish. I liked the door across the street from mine best. It had dark brown wood with patterned window panes, the kind through which you could only make out light and blurry figures.

I’ve worn the same two items of clothing to almost every hookup I’ve embarked on at the College of William and Mary. First, I adorn a black bomber jacket from H&M, one with too many zippers and too few pockets. It makes me look 10 times edgier than I actually am, and I like that because it signals to the men I’m meeting that I don’t need their validation.

In recent years, the Williamsburg-James City County public school district has been criticized due to perceived racial, socioeconomic and achievement inequities between constituent schools. Now, as its school board looks ahead toward adding an additional high school and redistricting based on population overcrowding, The Flat Hat is taking a look back at the district’s zoning history and examining how inequity between schools can be more effectively addressed. 

Sex trafficking suspect Evan Anthony Cole was taken into police custody July 11 following a lockdown at the Travelodge motel on Bypass Road, with police lingering in the Cracker Barrel parking lot across the street. While Cole has been apprehended by police, the proximity of his capture to campus calls into question the prevalence of human trafficking in the Williamsburg area.

I didn’t get my driver’s license until halfway through my freshman year of college. Don’t gasp - I know it’s unusual for a teenager in America. To be fair, I lived right in the middle of my town, a sprawling suburban landscape just west of DC. I walked to school, I biked to work, I took the metro, and I inevitably bummed rides off my friends. Given my reliance on public transportation, when I came to Williamsburg my freshman year, I was thrilled that students ride the buses for free.