Keene Pumpkin Festival fits trend: students rioting for no good reason

[cali]

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"It's become part of – for some people – part of the male role of being a college student," Jerry Lewis, an emeritus professor of sociology at Kent State University in Ohio, told USA Today. "Sometime during your [college] experiences you are supposed to ... participate in a riot."

Reports suggest that the riot began when a large party got out of hand. Keene State University students, as well as visitors from other colleges, are thought to have started the riot. Police managed to regain control around 1:30 a.m.

The riot fits with recent trends on college campuses, where riots have become more spontaneous and commonplace. For example, colleges involved in this spring's Final Four basketball tournament saw riots, as have a number of other campuses. Some of the riots are sports-related, but many – like the ones in Keene Saturday – appear to have no apparent cause other than students' bad behavior spiraling out of control.

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"It's just like a rush. You're revolting from the cops," Steven French, 18, who was visiting from Haverhill, Mass., told the Keene Sentinel. "It's a blast to do things that you're not supposed to do."

In 2005, a year after a week-long celebration at Iowa State University turned into a riot, sociology professor David Schweingruber surveyed one of his classes. The results were that 24 percent of the men and 11 percent of the women said they'd like to participate in a riot during college. Some 49 percent of men and 28 percent of women said they'd like to watch a riot during college.

He noted that his survey was a small sample size and not scientific, but he also noted that the number of nonprotest campus riots in 1985 was fewer than five. By 2002, it was up to 30.

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http://news.yahoo.com/keene-pumpkin-festival-fits-trend-students-rioting-no-192442220.html

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1. Iowa State ended their VEISHEA festival earlier this year, which was often

the scene for ridiculous acts of vandalism and rioting on the part of students far too many times over the years.

"AMES, Ia. -- Ensuring Iowa State University students' safety was at the forefront of President Steven Leath's mind when he decided to end Veishea, the university's long-time spring celebration, he said Thursday.

"I am not going to be the president who has to call a student's parents in the middle of the night to tell them that their student has been critically injured at another Veishea disturbance," Leath said Thursday at a news conference announcing his decision.

Veishea, an annual event that began in 1922, is named after the university's colleges when the event was founded — veterinary medicine, engineering, industrial science, home economics and agriculture — and was meant to be a celebration of the school. But it has seen serious problems in the past. This year's celebration was suspended after a weeknight riot occurred."

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/education/2014/08/06/isu-president-veishea-decision/13689049/