<p>This week in the news - we have the springfest riot at James Madison University (very thorough account of the level of violence and property destruction in today's Washington Post) and the disturbing video of police brutality at University of Maryland, College Park after a basketball game in March. It seems like both schools have a history of rowdy behavior. Was planning to visit JMU with S2 later this spring - but now I am really hesitating. I realize random acts of violence can occur anywhere, but it seems to me that it is only on the larger campuses that one can actually get swept up in a riot. Am I being a panicky mother or is this a valid point? Today, I feel like saying no campuses over a few thousand students.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041204291.html]washingtonpost.com[/url”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041204291.html]washingtonpost.com[/url</a>] Here is the link to the article I mentioned above.</p>
<p>RM: you are not being a panicky mother, but I wonder why this escalated into this? hasn’t JMU had this gathering every year? that would be the question I would ask…</p>
<p>the UMD incident is just sad…</p>
<p>Maybe a JMU parent or student can chime in…but I don’t think one can generalize this to all campuses over a certain number of students…but rather makes one careful to examine “campus culture”</p>
<p>Wellesley College has over a few thousand students. It’s hard for me to imagine a riot there. I don’t recall riots at Boston College or Boston University and those places are really big. Bentley, Brandeis, etc. seem unlikely for riots.</p>
<p>In this case, I think that it was the relationship between the police and the college students. The relationship between police and college students at Duke University wasn’t the best and that led to the Duke Lacrosse case. There are areas where there are issues between the police and students. In the Duke case, I think that town-gown relations were a problem with local residents unhappy with some student behavior. I don’t know the cause of the problems at College Park.</p>
<p>At my son’s school, the city police don’t seem to harass the students - the police wink at parties, even those above the police station.</p>
<p>Interesting point. Relations between the PG county police and University of Maryland always seem to be troubled. Have read some negative things about police on the JMU thread as well - although from what I have read about springfest so far, I don’t see the police being at fault. It just seems to me that things on both of these campuses tend to get out of control. But maybe it is not solely linked to the size of the campus - that’s a valid point.</p>
<p>Town and gown relationship is very important. It is something to consider when deciding which school to go to. Some private colleges do not allow police on campus. They have their own security. When there is animosity between school and town, for whatever reason, then kids get harassed. A lot of schools go out of its way to be part of their community by offering services and students are encouraged do volunteer work locally.</p>
<p>part of the issue is just a stats problem … all schools have idiots who do dumb things … Haverford has less than 1000 students while Ohio State has over 30,000 (I think) … all things being even I’d expect bad things to happen 30 times more frequently at Ohio State than at Haverford as they have about 30 times as many idiots … so it is expected that we’d hear about bad things at big schools much more often than at small schools.</p>
<p>We are a big state u. family (both parents and both kids). Keep in mind that both the JMU and UMD incidents happened off campus. The article also said that some of the kids there were not JMU students (VT and W&M students plus area high schoolers were present) . Who knows? It could have been some non-JMU students raising a lot of the ruckus too.</p>
<p>A student living on campus could easily avoid the entire thing.
I don’t think they would be “swept up in a riot” unless they put themselves in that position. </p>
<p>S2’s big state u. (25,000 students) has it’s own campus police force but they also work with the college town’s police force. It’s a city of about 70,000. The town/gown relations are very good. </p>
<p>I read the city’s daily newspaper online to keep up with what’s going on. The vast majority of any kind of ruckus takes place off campus. There really doesn’t seem to be too much of that though beyond the occassional too noisy/raucous frat. party or trouble at the downtown bars. I just tell S to avoid those places and he’ll be fine which so far (he’s a soph who lives off campus) has worked.</p>
<p>I definitely wouldn’t write off a whole division of colleges based on a few isolated incidents. The thing to remember is that your student can be as involved or uninvolved in that kind behavior as he wants to.</p>
<p>There are pros and cons to large vs. small schools…and lots of gems in both. It seems a terrible shame to rule out a large swath of possibilities based on the anxiety of a parent over a very unlikely future event happening to one’s child. Especially when they are far far greater risks to worry about, like I dunno, alcohol poisoning, or a car crash on the drive to a campus.</p>
<p>This was disheartening to read. My D was accepted to JMU but for other reasons has already decided not to attend. The issue with off-campus vs. on-campus housing can be a problem at a school like JMU. There only freshman are guaranteed campus housing and most upperclassman live off campus - from what we saw there are clustered areas of rental townhouses and apartments. So the school cannot really control what is going on socially at these places - since the students are located off campus, the police are the ones who are going to be required to respond to any incidents. This situation sounds like it marshalled out of control quickly.</p>