I'm disappointed to hear that the Running of the Goats Pub Crawl has been cancelled. The Goat Pack claims they were going to be on the wrong end of "disciplinary actions" by UW-Oshkosh if they went ahead with plans to visit a dozen downtown Oshkosh bars.
A lot of people will be missing out because this event has been squashed. The downtown bars will miss out on extra money in the till. Apparently supporting downtown businesses is important only if they don't sell alcohol. Some charities will miss out on extra revenue--as proceeds from the crawl were to go to the university--before they made a big deal in the media about how they didn't want that beer-soaked cash. Organizers then planned to help the families of sick kids to pay medical bills--but that is now scratched.
The students lose out as well. They are learning about the hypocrisy of the educational elite who tell kids all the time about how they need to do more to help others--just do what we believe to be socially acceptable to do it. Counseling young mothers to not have abortions--or lecturing kids on abstinence--probably rank just as low as drinking beer to raise money for your school.
My biggest problem is with the university's threat to discipline those who take part in the pub crawl. How can a school punish students for taking part in legal activities off-campus? I'm going on the assumption that all of the Pub Crawlers will be over 21--and none of the bars are on UWO property--so what legal grounds do administrators have to take action against participants? Just another strong-armed tactic from those who always claim to be supporters of freedom of choice and self-determination.
I would encourage those planning to take part in the pub crawl to still hit the taverns this Saturday "un-officially". Tell stories with your friends and create those special college memories that everyone older than you look back upon with such melancholy happiness--knowing our lives will never be that simple again. Just don't drive if you've had too much college spirit.
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Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteI cannot condone any of the activities of the students, but, for the university to respond the way they did, sickening. You are dead on with your response.
Let me take it a little further, most of the staff at UWO would not like it if the government (or in their case, the taxpayers) monitored their activities outside of campus and put constraints and disciplinary actions against them. The hypocracy runs one way, at some point the university decided that it was their job to control the students out side of school, not let them learn from their own experiences or mistakes. Next thing we know the University Police will want to be involved in the busting of college parties because it involves university students. Can you see where this is going? When was the last time an Oshkosh police officer shot some one? - no beangags please. But I digress...
Wouldn't it be nice if the University allowed the students to grow to be adults and treat them accordingly?
While I'm sure many people are dissappointed that the pub crawl was cancelled, I do think it was the RIGHT decision. The Goatpack is a registered student organization and as such I think that UWO does have a right to step in and object to an event that's centered on alcohol (let's be honest, college students and responsible drinking is somewhat of an oxymoron). To say that the event is off-campus and UWO should just turn their back to this event misses the point. This isn't an issue of personal freedom, it's an issue of liability. If something did happen, I think UWO could be held liable since their students in this organization were the ones who put together this event. Also, I think universities have a right to object to the behavior of their students since it reflects back on the institution.
ReplyDeleteThe Goat Pack is NOT a UWO organization. It has no faculty sponsor and receives no student organization funding.
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