Recent History Shows Being Named The Top Party School Usually Means Immediate Administrative Backlash

Rob Fox13 years ago

On the streets of Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa, the Princeton Review’s top party school, chaos now reigns. Shadows of blackout drunk students dance along the walls of buildings downtown, illuminated by the flickering flames of various couch fires. It is anarchy. The city has long been deserted. Martial law was enforced, and then overtaken by the drunk Hawkeye mobs. Now, those residents who were not able to flee hide indoors are forced to witness what has become of their once great town, and once great university. Students drink Natty for breakfast, and distill 150 proof moonshine in school chemistry labs, drinking it until they blackout, at which point they begin breaking anything in sight, declaring, “FUCK THIS [insert random object]” to raucous cheers from their fellow students. And they fornicate, everywhere. Nary a corner can be turned without seeing an act of coitus so foul, so shameless, that one can hardly believe their eyes. Plus, some of them are even doing it in the butt, and one chick got Eiffel Towered, hard. The city has fallen. The school has collapsed.

That is, at least, what many alumni and donors assume after their university is named the top party school. OH NO! Kids at this large state institution with a relatively lax admission policy are drinking a lot! WHATEVER HAS HAPPENED TO MY ONCE GREAT SCHOOL AT WHICH I TOTALLY DIDN’T DO THE SAME THINGS!?!

Don’t believe me? Just ask former Penn State president Graham Spanier. His school was ranked #1 in 2009, and he had to deal with consequences, not to mention terribly handle that whole “little boys getting raped on his campus” thing. He had a lot on his plate.

“Of course they want to be voted No. 1. Yeah, Penn State!” Spanier said. “Then I have to clean up the mess after the votes are in. Because I got all the donors and alumni, and the media I’m calling for comment.”

Donors and alumni do NOT want their school to be viewed as a “party school” because…I don’t really know. I guess it’s a bad rep to have, but pretty much any state school (i.e. the ones that usually win the top party school title) is going to have a “party” reputation. I find it hard to believe that it hurts application numbers. If anything, it probably helps. But then again, you might lose, say, ten valuable top tier academic students and replace them forty mouth breathers who want to drink tallboys and fuck average chicks in their dorm until their miserable academic performance necessitates they drop out and enroll in a community college.

So to appease the people funding the university, administrations immediately start a pushback against the party rep. Spanier took the initiative and instituted a number of measures at Penn State to curb drinking after the Nittany Lions claimed the title. Meanwhile, he sort of just went through the motions on the whole boy rape thing.

Spanier then rolled out a 30-point plan in 2010 to curb drinking at Penn State, which included raising alcohol and court fines, adding police and eliminating a well-known excuse for partying called Senior Week. Greeks were pressured into new policies to restrain social gatherings.

Bars were even paid to halt alcohol sales during a big party event known as State Patty’s Day.

Similarly, Ohio University rolled out a “Party Legal” campaign after they claimed the party crown. Last year, the mayor Morgantown, West Virginia, home to 2012’s top party school, West Virginia University, also tried to institute harsher penalties to curb partying. Actually, what’s funny is that the description of WVU’s partying problem basically sounds exactly like what I described above.

In West Virginia, Morgantown Mayor Jim Manilla proposed a fire fee for WVU students because they were setting too many blazes in the streets, and after they flipped cars following a football victory.

Freakin’ hill people.

It’s basically guaranteed that the University of Iowa is going to try to shed itself of this title as quickly as possible. The school and city have been trying to crack down on partying for several years, clearly to little avail. The brave Iowa students have fought back, held up their cheap liquor and loose morals, and said, “We will not go quietly into the night!” And they were victorious. SUCK IT IOWA ADMINISTRATION!

Enjoy your time now, Iowa students, because my guess is your hard on administrators are going to be pulling some new bullshit out of their sleeves pretty soon.

[via HuffPost College]