Stripper pole in JU dorm draws crowd
Students reprimanded for lewd behavior, making unapproved improvements.
By THOMAS LAKE
The Times-Union
Several students at Jacksonville University have been reprimanded for installing a pole-dancing stage in an on-campus apartment and taking pictures as female schoolmates performed on it.
About a dozen female students, most of them freshmen and most of them drunk, competed for a $100 Victoria's Secret gift certificate Sept. 11, said James Foster, the 20-year-old junior from West Palm Beach who hosted the party.
While accounts differ on what the contestants wore, party bartender Michael Gerson said no one disrobed completely.
The men bought a steel pole from Home Depot, bolted it to the concrete ceiling and attached the bottom to a plywood stage covered in red felt.
"Honestly, we just wanted to say we had a stripper pole," Foster said. "We never actually expected girls to dance on it."
When university officials ordered them to take down the pole, the men complied, but not before building a huge party around it.
They posted signs in their windows saying "Pole Dancers Wanted." They bought large quantities of beer and enlisted friends to check IDs and manage security. They charged $5 for men and let women in free.
"Only one girl actually knew how to dance on a pole," Gerson said.
The party's hosts broke two rules in the student handbook, university spokesman John Daigle Jr. said -- one banning lewd or indecent behavior, and the other prohibiting on-campus students from making unapproved home improvements.
The number of students disciplined and the severity of their punishments were unclear Wednesday because Daigle could not reach officials in the Dean of Students office.
Foster said he was put on residential probation through Tuesday, Nov. 9, and had to write a letter of apology. It appears at least two other male students were reprimanded, and Foster said some of the dancing girls were ordered to attend counseling.
The incident disgusted some students.
"It really was kind of a smutty situation," said Thomas Wilson, a 22-year-old junior from Barrington, R.I. "I drink, and I party, and I've been known to do wild things, but even I have a limit."
Resident adviser Amber Davis said the party degraded women.
"There are other ways they can go out and get a girlfriend, if that's what they want," she said.
The party ended shortly after they ran out of beer, Gerson said. After the crackdown, the men took down the pole and put it in a closet.
They turned the stage into a pingpong table.
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went."
Will Rogers
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