2008 Woodie Awards
UMass grapples with party image
Sruthi Valluri, Collegian Staff
Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: News
In comparison, Hampshire College has 1,434 students, and UMass-Lowell has 7,419 students. UMass is nearly eight times the size of Smith College, the sec-ond largest school in the Five College consortium.
Consequently, the size translates to more parties, larger crowds at riots and more attention from the media. The riot in 2006 - precipitated by the school's par-ticipation in the Football Championship Subdivision's final - involved nearly 2,000 students, a crowd about as large as Amherst College's entire undergraduate population.
"People pay more attention to you," said Blaguszewski. "In Massachusetts, everyone knows somebody who went to UMass."
Nearly 80 percent of UMass students are from Massachusetts. A majority of these students decide to remain in the Commonwealth, which means that UMass has many more connections to Massachusetts residents than other institutions.
Events on the campus in the past few weeks have given the media a lot of material to work with. The Boston Globe ran several articles with headlines such as "Violence rattles UMass-Amherst," and "UMass-Amherst urges calm after vio-lent events."
Senior Andy Stone sees this as only natural.
"This is a tax-payer funded school," he said. "We're under more scrutiny because more people pay for it, even if they don't go here."
Captain Mike Kent of the Amherst Police Department said that regardless of the amount of media coverage a campus receives, alcohol has always been a prob-lem for universities across the nation.
"Every college has its issues," he said, pointing out that Michigan State Uni-versity had to deal with an incident of its own earlier this month.
Like UMass, MSU is a large university with a history of student violence. On April 6, a large crowd of nearly 4,000 students - many of them intoxicated - had an encounter with the campus police. The incident received a lot of local atten-tion and revived discussions about the stigma associated with state schools.
Consequently, the size translates to more parties, larger crowds at riots and more attention from the media. The riot in 2006 - precipitated by the school's par-ticipation in the Football Championship Subdivision's final - involved nearly 2,000 students, a crowd about as large as Amherst College's entire undergraduate population.
"People pay more attention to you," said Blaguszewski. "In Massachusetts, everyone knows somebody who went to UMass."
Nearly 80 percent of UMass students are from Massachusetts. A majority of these students decide to remain in the Commonwealth, which means that UMass has many more connections to Massachusetts residents than other institutions.
Events on the campus in the past few weeks have given the media a lot of material to work with. The Boston Globe ran several articles with headlines such as "Violence rattles UMass-Amherst," and "UMass-Amherst urges calm after vio-lent events."
Senior Andy Stone sees this as only natural.
"This is a tax-payer funded school," he said. "We're under more scrutiny because more people pay for it, even if they don't go here."
Captain Mike Kent of the Amherst Police Department said that regardless of the amount of media coverage a campus receives, alcohol has always been a prob-lem for universities across the nation.
"Every college has its issues," he said, pointing out that Michigan State Uni-versity had to deal with an incident of its own earlier this month.
Like UMass, MSU is a large university with a history of student violence. On April 6, a large crowd of nearly 4,000 students - many of them intoxicated - had an encounter with the campus police. The incident received a lot of local atten-tion and revived discussions about the stigma associated with state schools.
Viewing Comments 1 - 8 of 9
L33to
posted 4/14/08 @ 2:54 AM EST
Silly students!
Have none of you ever partaken in the Water of Life??
Try it once, take my word for it.
Innocent Bystander
posted 4/14/08 @ 4:29 AM EST
The only difference between the UMass of the 1970s and today is the political views, instead of liberals revolting against conservative administrators, there now are conservative "Dunkin Donuts Democrats" revolting against liberal administrators. (Continued…)
neil
posted 4/14/08 @ 7:53 AM EST
Sounds like a good assignment! Go to Five College parties and right an article.
The article observes excessive drinking at many of the the five colleges and reasonably concludes that binge drinking occurs on all of the campuses. (Continued…)
Recent Grad
posted 4/14/08 @ 1:20 PM EST
I think Neil has a point about large group behavior vs. small group behavior, but not all the people at UMass parties are from UMass. During the riots of 2002 and 2004, there were quite a few Amherst (College and HS) students participating. (Continued…)
Correction
posted 4/14/08 @ 2:18 PM EST
UMass was #9 party school in 2005 and the #7 in 2007. Check your facts.
anon
valars
posted 4/14/08 @ 10:17 PM EST
well, there are some good points, but i think you guys are over-intellectualizing the situation a bit. kids who are frustrated with the administration and it's myopic constraints on student liberties go out and protest. (Continued…)
Dingleberry Dan
posted 4/15/08 @ 12:43 AM EST
I won-der if you've ever ta-ken a class in the eng-lish language, and if they taught you to use a hy-phen in every oth-er word like that. Just an ob-servation. (Continued…)
no
posted 4/15/08 @ 7:59 PM EST
i think theyre hyphened because they were in an article and to fit the columns they probably had to, so not so good of an insult
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