Due to the recent outbreak of fires, Principal Stanley Teitel canceled Alumni Day, which had originally been scheduled to take place on Wednesday, November 25.

Alumni Day allows graduates to return to Stuyvesant and visit both teachers and friends within the school. This is a traditional ritual for many alumni, since colleges allot days off for students to spend Thanksgiving with their families.

However, according to Teitel, the event had to be canceled in order to keep both students and alums safe. If a fire had occurred on Alumni Day, an evacuation would have been very difficult to carry out.

“I couldn’t afford to have 300 alums in the building for whom nobody is responsible,” Teitel said.

Although a notice of the cancellation was posted on the Stuyvesant Web site the previous day at noon, many alumni did not find out until Wednesday. “I had moved around travel plans so that I could make Alumni Day,” Tanya Kobzeva (’09) said. “Then I had an open day with nowhere to go.”

To compensate for not being allowed into the building, some alumni gathered at the bridge entrance on Wednesday. “It was great seeing a lot of the teachers who still decided to make the painful walk down the bridge, as they were constantly bombarded by alumni, instead of leaving from a back exit,” Allen Granzberg (‘09) said.

Students expressed mixed opinions about the cancellation. “I am upset but I do think that this is a necessary temporary administrative action,” senior Daniel Fleishman said.

Kobzeva agreed. “I’m not happy with the fact that Teitel cancelled alumni day, but I think he did the right thing. He really is just looking out for the safety of students,” Kobzeva said. “I just wish he didn’t have to. There used to be a time when the student body could be trusted. Those rights that everyone says are being taken away […] aren’t rights, they’re privileges, and we [...] need to work on getting them back.”

Junior Amanda Pagul, however, said, “It is disappointing that over 3000 people have to pay for the actions of one.”

According to Teitel, the administration hopes to reschedule Alumni Day to sometime before Winter Recess, which begins on Thursday, December 24.