Yesterday Ohio University President Roderick McDavis sent an e-mail to OU students discussing Halloween and giving students tips on how to make this Halloween better and safer for everyone.
And for those of you who don't know this, your parents also got a letter during the past couple of days telling them many of the same things that were told to you in the e-mail.
While I applaud the president's efforts to communicate with those people who are helping to fund his salary, i.e. students and their parents, and reminding students that OU does have a president and that he, in fact, is it, I find the entire thing ineffective and a bit patronizing.
As McDavis said in the e-mail, Halloween is not an OU-sponsored event, so they really have no control over what happens besides the restrictions they can place on people in the dorms. By sending the e-mail, McDavis is able to more or less wash his hands of the whole thing because he at least made an attempt.
But really, did anyone who was planning to bring in a bunch of friends or getting really trashed this weekend decide not to do so because his or her university president, who typically is pretty far removed from the student's daily life, warned against it? Somehow I doubt it.
In the letter that was sent to everyone's parents, McDavis wrote that an important goal of OU is to prepare students for responsible citizenship. In my opinion, that sounds like he wants us to act like adults. But I don't feel very much like an adult when he is telling my parents that they have to remind me to act like one.
Also, in the letter, McDavis asked our parents to ask us how we plan to spend the evening, if we have thought about how to respond to guests who are out of line and with whom we plan to spend Halloween.
I am 21 years old. I don't really feel like I still need to be telling my parents with whom I plan to spend my evenings.
And if the problem often is not with OU students, but with out-of-town guests, as McDavis said in both the e-mail and the letter, then maybe we should send letters to all the other universities and colleges in Ohio so that they can tell their students not to come destroy Athens.
I hope that once the parties are over, the costumes are destroyed and the kegs are tapped, there will have been no serious problems, riots or other disturbances this year, and I trust that my fellow students will make good choices because they are responsible citizens and not because someone told them to.
-Lindsey Nelson is The Post's city editor. Send her an e-mail at lindsey.nelson@ohiou.edu.
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Letter to the Editor
