Nearing the one-year anniversary of student Karl Harford's death, a March 4, 2005 Daily News staff editorial discussed how campus felt different without any tangible evidence of change.
"In the grand scheme of things, we are just a handful put in this situation," the editorial said. "With each graduating senior and incoming freshman, the names of Michael McKinney and Karl Harford fade into the newsprint history books. Their stories and the lessons from them, however, will live on to a day when students only point of reference will be, 'Wasn't there a story about a student who...?'"
Today is that day.
You've heard all week about the McKinney trial, Karl Harford's death and the insanity that was "Police Yourself." Read the news stories all you want (and you should), but it's damn difficult to detail the emotions filling campus during 2003-2004. It's also challenging to describe a Ball State post-"Police Yourself."
Let's add some perspective. When "Police Yourself" started in Spring 2004: McKinley Avenue was a giant strip of concrete, a courtyard sat where the David Letterman Communication and Media Building now stands, the Music Instruction Building was under construction, a laundry facility named "Suds" did business where Pita Pit now sells and this year's college freshmen were in their first year of high school.
Student deaths seemed abundant that school year. In addition to McKinney and Harford, an on-campus suicide and a fatal Spring Break car accident in Florida furthered the chaotic perception.
The entire year was a public relations nightmare for the university. Every time good news would rise above, the damning hand of bad publicity would squash it right back into the ground. The university fought to keep current students calm and orderly, while reassuring prospective students and their parents - not to mention the press - Ball State University was not in shambles. It was perception the university fought, not reality. One is impossible to change; the other might as well be.
Student outcry was beyond belief after McKinney's death. I recall staring at a full newspaper page of letters to the editor - this in addition to the regular forum page. I have not seen feedback that strong, powerful or moving since.
With the announcement of the "Police Yourself" alcohol/consequence-awareness campaign, the larger issue on campus became the perceptive ties between violence and drinking. It was damage control for the university. To the students, it meant a restriction of "freedom" and boozing.
In five years covering this campus I've rarely seen protest, but Spring 2004 still sticks with me. Students, albeit only 150 of them, marched from Shafer Tower to the Administration Building protesting the "Police Yourself" campaign.
The university campaign would rebrand just as the 2003-2004 academic year ended, changing to "Alcohol and You." Though laughable, it seemed less threatening to students. President Jo Ann Gora arrived that summer, and her presence ultimately took a lot of the spotlight away from the events of the previous year.
We returned to a calmer campus in Fall 2004. Memories remained for three classes of students, but an incoming class of freshmen knew only what they'd read or watched on television. With that class, and every one after it, a cycle of new thoughts and naivety slowly led to a day when there was only "a story about a student who ..."
And here we are.
Surely my involvement with student media kept me in the know more than the average student, but I never felt at-risk, in danger or unsafe. True, I cut down my house party attendance, but it didn't keep me from having a good time in smaller, controlled venues.
And that holds true today - it's one thing to party, it's another to get entirely blitzed among a mass of 150 people you don't know in a three-bedroom house off Rex Street.
Maybe it was me watching the cycle, turning 21 and looking back. Perhaps the events of my freshman year had a stronger effect on me than I first thought. But I now know the joys of partying and enjoying college come at the expense of assuming responsibility. As my young and eager class learned that academic year, you've got to learn how to balance the two.
I guess that's called policing yourself.
Write to Dave at heydave@bewilderedsociety.com
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