Category: Opinion

I guess Facebook isn�t only for stalking and poking. As demonstrated by the Student Labor Action Coalition late last week, some people believe the popular website can also be used for pressuring university officials to take action on important issues and proposals. Debatable, though, is whether creating mock Facebook profiles for university administrators is the best way to get them on your side.

Yes, on my first day of college, a guy down the hall encouraged me to take a peek at his roommate having sex. Yes, I once heard the thud of a drunken student hitting concrete after he fell from a 12-foot perch in the middle of the night. And yes, during a football game, a tumbler of ice struck my head with such force that the plastic shattered.

So, like most University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni, I was not shocked that hundreds of revelers were arrested in Madison again this Halloween, or that UW has again topped the annual list of party schools. Perhaps more surprising to the average Badger is that, in my four years there, I didn’t have a single drink.

I guess Facebook isn�t only for stalking and poking. As demonstrated by the Student Labor Action Coalition late last week, some people believe the popular website can also be used for pressuring university officials to take action on important issues and proposals. Debatable, though, is whether creating mock Facebook profiles for university administrators is the best way to get them on your side.

When freshman students begin life on a new campus, safety is of the utmost importance. After a while, the feeling of safety becomes interminable and immunity to danger develops. Crime rates are as low as they have ever been, and the belief that ââ?¬Å?thereââ?¬â?¢s no way anything could happen to meââ?¬Â is overwhelming. Walking home at night alone? No problem. This feeling of safety is what every student deserves to feel while at home at his or her school. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and the root of some problems may be the fault of the university.

Next weekend marks the annual flight home of the college freshmen, the midterm migration in which recently fledged students return home to prove their parents are getting their money’s worth.

We have so many questions for these kids. How are they holding up against all those liberal professors we keep hearing about? Is it really possible to live on nothing but Chipotle burritos? And how could they have gone so many minutes over their monthly cell phone allotment without ever having called home?

Now that we have a couple of weeks’ distance from this year’s Halloween “festivities” in Madison, during which the police decided to pepper-spray a crowd to pre-empt the drunken rampages of previous years, perhaps we can begin to think seriously about underage drinking.

University of Wisconsin Interim Dean of Students Lori Berquam gets my vote for the overzealous, super-mother of the year award.

….(Robert) Kenner’s film, based on David Maraniss’ book, “They Marched Into Sunlight,” forced viewers to confront the lessons of Vietnam that are made even more searing by the war in Iraq.

The television footage from the Halloween street battle, on the other hand, showed what happens when the UW-Madison’s Internet and bar culture reputation as America’s No. 1 Party School turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here are a few ideas about how to make sure future Octobers in Madison don’t end up in a swirl of hard feelings, hangovers and hospital bills:

The Capital Times suggests that I chill out over Halloween. It is true that thanks to an unprecedented level of planning and cooperation among city officials, the Police Department, UW-Madison, students and downtown business owners, this year’s event was an improvement over past years. Most notably, we avoided the kind of serious property damage that has marred the event in the past.

But there is reason to be concerned, and a need to have a communitywide discussion about the future of Halloween.

Earning the title of the No. 1 party school in the nation is something that many students here are proud of. Our school is known for being a place where students like to have fun, but lately it seems that this behavior has gotten too out of control and even dangerous.

In the wake of another Halloween celebration that ended in police force and pepper spray, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has had enough. The mayor, who has crusaded against the festivities for some time now, has already begun to rally support for the cancellation of the annual tradition.

Tens of thousands lined State Street for this year�s Halloween event Saturday night. While this weekend�s party was an overall improvement from past years because there was not a riot, a few thousand partygoers lost their common sense and impeded the evening�s potential to reach expectations of city officials.

On a cold October evening in Madison some three years ago, a few ordinary people decided that a holiday normally reserved for elementary school children with candy pails should include excessive inebriation, pyromania and looting. These troublemakers were not a representative sample of the city�s population or even the University of Wisconsin student body; they were a group of bad apples with no caramel coating.

When Provost Peter Spear packed his bags and bid adieu to the University of Wisconsin earlier this week, this campus lost an accomplished administrator who helped guide the university to where it is today.