The Great Lasallian Civil War: An Introduction

By Mark Costello
War Historian
October 18, 2006

It was a balmy August day in 2005 when the first action of the Great Lasallian Civil War came to pass. Tensions had been mounting for years between the two halves of the greater La Salle community, North and South Campus, over fair usage of the Union Building. Southern delegates claimed North Dorms used its proximity and sizeable student population to mine the Union clean of anything of value. Meeting rooms, it was said, were filled with North Dormers. North Dormers had eaten all the mozzarella sticks Intermissions had to offer, had taken over the theater, Backstage, all of it. Then, in late August 2005, during an SGA meeting in which they felt their concerns had been ignored, South Campus delegates slammed their briefcases shut and huffed their way out of the room, which would prove to be the stone that caused the ripples of change in the pond of Lasallian camaraderie.

South Campus students felt manhandled by North Dorms, and after the walkout, feeling somehow betrayed, North Dorms responded via the written word. Leaflets began going up around campus, claiming that South was getting further and further away from the Lasallian way of life. New movements towards Treetops food delivery and air conditioning were egregious, anti-Lasallian, and most importantly, nifty features North Dorms didn’t have. South Campus delegates eventually caught wind of these leaflets and began publishing material from secret printing presses in the IBC Fitness Center that claimed they deserved the innovations they had provided themselves with, pointing a finger at North Dorms and exclaiming “sour grapes.”

South Campus proceeded to break off from North Campus in the fall of 2006, a full year after the walkout and a few months after the leaflet campaigns. Calling themselves “The Educational Compendium of Southern La Salle,” they formed their own RSA and SGA organizations and set up a chain link fence along the road that connected South and Main Campus, posting guards along the fence to monitor incoming and outgoing packages and persons.

North Dorms quickly responded by allying with the Manor Apartments, as well as the University’s off-campus and commuter students. After the Great Land Grab of 2007, North Dorms acquired Main Campus while South Campus was hanging out in the Wister Woods, distracted. South responded just in time to stop North Dorms from acquiring the Union, and from that day until the end of the conflict, North and South focused the entirety of their efforts on justifying an invasion and occupation of the Union.

Interestingly, as both sides unveiled new and distracting innovations, ownership of the Union Building passed back and forth between the two superpowers rather seamlessly (e.g., when North Dorms focused on the unveiling of a new type of chocolate fountain at its main food source, the B&G, South invaded the Union and held it until their attention was called to a new and improved South Campus shuttle, the Merrimac).

Both sides seemed to have legitimate claims to ownership of the Union Building, and both sides engaged in warlike activity to assert their legitimacy. Of course, after the Great Reunification of 2009, the victor of the struggle is nearly impossible to call. Both sides were scarred by the divisions between North and South, and both improved by being in isolation for a few years. Only through time, as we watch the economies and technologies of both sides pick up again, will we know which side came off prettier after the Great Lasallian Civil War.

costellom4@lasalle.edu