Letter: Save the campus, get rid of students

Maybe campus would be one step closer to total safety if we just got rid of the students?

This year there is some discussion of the Foresters ball going into the future. It seems a bit silly to scapegoat one student run event as an example of drunkenness. Go to a UM rugby game at UM's Dornblazer field and you will find players and spectators sneaking pulls of liquor and openly drinking beers. Go anywhere near campus on a Griz football gameday and you will find mobs of drunken 18-60 year olds, and this is well before noon (a fine example of safe and responsible drinking). I wonder how many people are actually arrested or ticketed for alcohol on a Griz gameday? How many assaults take place that day? How many calls to police for rude and lewd behavior? I wonder why we have little discussion on how to make Griz games more sober.

How many extra students do we think are drunk the night of Foresters Ball compared with any other weekend-night around campus? The high level of incidents involving alcohol is a function of so many security/police and students in one relatively small place, and not the Ball itself.

But just maybe, student safety isn't the biggest part of the issue, and if the Foresters Ball brought enough money into the University it would be a different story. Maybe if Ball had a bigger venue and happened every other weekend it could be a major draw for out of state students. Maybe we would even pay a school wide Ball fee.

The Ball is an amazing tradition and a marvel of student achievement. Thousands of man-hours go into building and taking down the Ball every year. It would be a shame to see it disappear because of some bad press and lack of support from the same people who seem to enjoy it so much.

Erik Thompson

Forest Resource Management

Senior