Springfest 3.1

Springfest is one event that most JMU students look forward to every year. It attracts college students from all over the country and is one of the biggest parties on the east coast. Personally, I had heard a lot about this event from my friends that attend JMU before I decided to come here. So, this day was marked on my calendar and even had a countdown going in my mind. I had told a lot of my friends about the springfest weekend and even had a friend from VCU come up to experience this ‘college experience’. We were sure JMU’s reputation as a party school wasn’t going to let us down. Ironically, there was never a lack of a party but too much of it. The whole country knows about how excessive the party was and how the whole thing got out of control. Just a few days after the event, the news went national and was even on the front page of CNN.

The moment my friend arrived from VCU, we all had one thing in mind. It was to get ready for the biggest party of the year. The moment we got there, it was obvious that it lived up to the hype. “…party usually sees between 1,000 and 2,000 people. This year an estimated crowd of 8,000 attended, and many partygoers involved were not James Madison students” (Cavalier Daily). We arrived there around 2 pm and people were already getting unruly. It was obvious that it was not just JMU kids there at the party. The cops were first at the scene making sure none of the students were on the street intoxicated. I was surprised to even see some of the students on the street with a beer in their hand just ignoring the cops. When the cops slowly began telling the students to move away from the streets, most of them paid no attention and kept on raving as if they were inside their private property.

My first reaction to seeing the cops was to get inside one of the houses. We got really lucky because my friend from VCU randomly knew the owner of the house we went into. When I look back at this event, I was shocked to see so many students just ignore the cop’s orders. When we got back out of the house, the number of cops increased and most of them had riot shields. The scene looked like something that happened at Kent State just last year. “An end-of-year college block party spiraled out of control as police fired pellets and used pepper spray to break up hundreds of rioting students who sparked a string of street fires at Kent State University” (Barr). This was the first thing in my mind when I saw what was happening at forest hills that day.

I was kind of ashamed to be a part of all this because this block party was never supposed to be like this. A couple of JMU students also created a group in facebook, raising money for all the damage that occurred that day. It was evident that day what alcohol can do to a person and how it takes control of your body. I am sure the student’s actions were all due to the fact that they were heavily intoxicated. JMU students are smart enough to respect the authorities. Most of the students must have pre-gamed before coming to Springfest because there were limited amounts of alcohol there when we arrived. In a recent study done by the Journal of American College Health, it was shown that two-thirds of the students pre-game before going out (Read). Pre-gaming before parties drastically increases their risk of getting in trouble or even getting arrested.

These kinds of events severely damage JMU’s reputation in a number of ways. JMU is already known as a party school and although this might bring more ‘party animals’ to JMU, it will hurt JMU’s standing when it comes to job opportunities. When employers look at two candidates from JMU and any other college, they will perceive JMU as a party school with no interest in education. I understand the fact that most of the students who got arrested at Springfest were not JMU students, but it does not take away the fact that this was a JMU party. After all, perception is always greater than reality. We had a talk about this in my GCom class and one of the seniors had recently sent his resume to a company. It turns out that he got denied from the job just because of what happened last weekend. He was not even there at Springfest, but the company perceived JMU to be a party school with a bunch of ignorant intoxicated students.

Harrisonburg cops need to be a little stricter when it comes to being drunk in public. I am not against having a little fun and partying on the weekends, but what happened last weekend should never happen at any academic institution. Underage students should not be able to walk around in public intoxicated like that springfest weekend. If they want to party, they should stay inside private property. Hopefully next year the cops would never let this thing get that big because the whole nation perceives JMU to be a party school with no interest in academics.