as an Alum, all I wanted was a little Taste of Veishea and maybe a Cherry Pie before the Spring Game, God D***it
*** OFFICIAL VEISHEA WEEK 2014 THREAD ***
- Thread starter ZachsterPoke
- Start date
True, but you might not get the same word of mouth spread when it's gone for a few years. I'm sure that even though none of the current students were on campus in 2004, a ton of them know plenty about it.
Sooo....what exactly would stop them from rioting again? Taking an event away and bringing it back later on isn't going to solve the problem. They cancelled it in 2005 because of a riot and look what happened this week? VEISHEA is synonomous with rioting (unfortunately) and will be an issue as long as it exists. It doesn't take prolonged cancellation to solve the problem, or an increased police presence, or a controlled environment; it takes personal responsibility for your actions and your condition when drinking...something that a few hundred or so people did not have last night and, outside of a generational shift of thinking, may never have.
Leath said something along the lines of "any more altercations, and the committee that will determine Veishea's future won't have to meet very long."
Which is why I said cancel it until the current student body is out the door. Canceling one year only gets rid of one class of students. Meanwhile, while the 2004-05 freshman class didn't get to experience it, I'm sure they were all told how awesome the 2006 VEISHEA would be, etc.
Get a full student body that has never experienced VEISHEA, and maybe things will improve. If that doesn't do the trick, then it's probably time to do away with it entirely.
And this is why cancelling veishea is the knee jerk decision rather than the right one. The parties will still happen but the events largely attended by thse who had no participation in the riot are the ones that get cancelled. Solves nothing and ruins a lot of people's weekend.
A better course of action would have been to increase security at night for this year, come down hard on participants (make it clear that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated in an effort to deter future events) and then evaluate better action choices for future years over the coming months, including changes in veishea format and events and better crowd management strategies (not funneling crowds towards welch for starters)
People in this thread may say 'he had no choice', no he had a choice. He may have had pressure, but a good leader makes the right decision even in the face of pressure.
If there were more riots tonight, and someone got killed, or a building was set on fire, the University would look terrible. That looks incredibly irresponsible to say, "Eh, we're going to go ahead and do things, anyway." He had to do something to help the university not look like it was sitting on its hands.
And this does exactly nothing to prevent any of that.
There are other ways to present an image that you are doing something than just cancelling it. Announce a stepped up security presence, for example.
It's not about whether they saw it. But let's say they cancel it for the next 3-4 years. How much will seniors in 2018 be able to tell freshmen about VEISHEA, when they've never be able to be a part of it before?
It's no different than high school sports when you have a group of bad attitudes. Got a ****** senior class, and it tends to filter down the ranks and repeats itself year after year. You have to find a way to break the cycle, and a 1-year hiatus ain't gonna do it.
Well, yeah... there's all that. But what about my buzz? What about the party?!!?! Screw Leath!!!! Rabble, rabble, rabble, rabble.....
But, whether it's the right or wrong answer, it at least washes the university's hands of responsibility. People dying/almost dying at a school-sanctioned week-long party makes Iowa State look bad. We were the number two most active police scanner feed last night, only behind Chicago. It makes us look like we don't know what we're doing, and maybe they don't - so they're saying, "Well, then we just won't do anything."
What exactly did he cancel that would prevent these things from happening? All he did was take away options for other things to do. Instead of controlling the fire he's trying to put it out with gasoline.
