 "Photo: Jeromie Whalen, Collegian")
While recent violence on campus may have overshadowed the University of Massachusetts' reputation as a party school, many students, faculty and alumni remain concerned with the image UMass still holds.
"The party reputation at UMass was aggrandized by both students and administration," said junior legal studies and history major Michael Tsapatsaris.
Senior computer science major John Brattin had a different perspective.
"I'm annoyed that UMass has a reputation for being a party school," he said. "When I told people I was going to UMass, 90 percent of them made some lame joke about how much I must want to drink. It frustrated and embarrassed me every time I had to explain that in fact I was serious about my studies and that I had no plans to drink at all."
Even the Princeton Review - which in its annual report two years ago cited UMass as the eighth largest party school in the nation - has since dropped UMass from its ranks.
"I think UMass is greatly exaggerated as a party school, and it has the same level of partying as most universities," said junior neuroscience major Deanna De La Cruz. "UMass has a lot to offer students and it is sad that out of its greatest accomplishments, it is outshined by the idea that it is a party school."
Tsapatsaris suspected there were some concrete motives in the ways that both UMass and the media addressed the issue.
"In an attempt to tone down this mythology, the administration has fervently campaigned to end something that was a natural part of the college experience," Tsapatsaris said. "In doing so, they really just made binge drinking worse because everyone is hiding their drinking more to not get in trouble. Also, by attempting to remove the upperclassmen from the freshmen, they got rid of a necessary source of experience for the younger students."
Some students have since argued that the UMass party reputation was fostered through the segregation of freshmen students into "First-Year Experience" housing, and that interaction with upperclassmen is necessary to help freshmen practice restraint while drinking.
Many students who find themselves capable and responsible in making their own decisions are infuriated by this notion. The idea that because a student decided to go to UMass gives him or her a social stigma is arousing dissent in much of the student body.
"They automatically think that I'm a slacker and a crazed alcoholic just because I'm a student here," said freshman theater and journalism major Liz Wahlman. "The reputation makes me feel like I have to state my GPA whenever someone asks me where I go to college."
Many argued that the UMass reputation is an exaggeration of what is the normal standard at any other college.
"Predisposition towards partying in our school is contributing to the social atmosphere, and it's fairly normal," said biology major Kelsey Stinemack.
"State schools in general tend to get that rap," he concluded.
A lot of negativity about the potential reputation of the UMass community is evident in some UMass students.
"Given the personality of students coming in, the ones that have no direction or academic ambition, the school's reputation will get a whole lot worse before rising again," said junior English major Myles Kaeding.
There is some optimism in the student body however. Many students and alumni agree that the way UMass is regarded will be reliant upon future generations of students.
"I see [UMass] becoming one of the premiere state schools [like] UNC Chapel Hill or the University of Chicago," said Tsapatsaris. "The degrees will be worth more in five years in academic capital than they were five years ago, which is undoubtedly a plus."
"It is up to the students of today to mold the reputation [UMass] will have tomorrow," said De La Cruz.
Devon Courtney can be reached at dcourtne@student.umass.edu.
Be the first to comment on this article!