The headlines speak for themselves. "Crowd of 8,000 damages surrounding property; officers arrest 20 to 30 people, use pepper spray, foam batons," reads the subhead from yesterday's article in The Cavalier Daily. This was no typical college party. James Madison University's annual Springfest celebration fell into disarray last Saturday when partygoers began throwing beer cans and bottles at cars, buildings, themselves and eventually police officers, as well as setting fire to dumpsters. Quite a contrast from past years, this year's Springfest attracted 6,000 more people than last year, many of whom did not attend James Madison. Many aspects of Springfest are analogous to the University's past tradition of Easters Weekend, which eventually was disbanded because of similar problems.
Around 3 p.m. Saturday, police officers donning full riot gear took action to disperse students using tear gas, pepper spray and foam batons. Amateur videos of the incidents quickly went viral and are circulating on popular Web sites like YouTube and Facebook. For anyone who embraces the old adage that "any press is good press," James Madison administrators would disagree vehemently.
James Madison President Linwood H. Rose sent an e-mail to the student body following the event, calling the behavior by many of those in attendance as "an embarrassment to your university and a discredit to our reputation." That is certainly not a stretch. Nevertheless, students alone should not shoulder all the blame for the damage done - many of those causing the most trouble likely were not students. Large-scale social events are part of the fabric of college life, but they carry great risk and can produce volatile situations quickly. It is difficult to say if the police response was entirely appropriate given the circumstances, but it is clear that the conduct of many students and attendees necessitated a swift reaction by law enforcement.
The University has something of a sordid past with big time partying, as well. In 1982, then-President Frank Hereford canceled the near century-long tradition of Easters amid concerns about growing crowd sizes. Former Dean of Students Robert Canevari said at the time, "Ultimately, the ending of Easters came down to students' refusal to do what was necessary to minimize the dangers of the event." University administrators realized it was nearly impossible to safely accommodate the hoards of individuals celebrating, a great number of whom were not University students.
It appears James Madison's Springfest is causing similar concerns for that school's leadership. The University's experience with Easters can provide a useful example for colleges across the state as they deal with balancing student social life with safety priorities. If Springfest and similar traditions are to continue, students must be amenable to university and police officials' apprehension about the well-being of partygoers, as well as to worries about how such events reflect on the colleges themselves.
The Easters lesson is a simple one: Compromise among students, administrators and law enforcement is a much better outcome than longstanding traditions becoming nothing but faded memories.
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