What happens on a random night at West Virginia University? Some nights offer movies and food sponsored by Up All Night events, but other nights get a little too rowdy. WVU has always had a reputation for burning couches and partying hard, but when does it stop?
In 2014, West Virginia fans rioted after the win against Baylor. Last year, fights and fires broke loose during the major snow storm Jonas. After getting hit in the face with a full beer can, my friend ended up in an ambulance with multiple stitches. As the snow melted over the next few days, thousands of cans – full, half full and empty – were found littering the streets of Morgantown. This past Saturday, Sept. 17, there were two more fires to add to the list of many.
Walking with friends, we stumbled onto the latest deliberately set fire in Morgantown. On Saturday evening, there were two different fires blocking the streets of Beverly and Grant. As the flames from what I believe to be a mattress burned almost two stories high, we turned the other way. All we wanted was to go home and get away from potential trouble, but we passed another group of people talking in drunkenly accentuated voices about a car on fire on the next road and we realized the situation was more serious than we had originally thought.
What happened to cause a night like that? It wasn’t an amazing game or days off of school for snow, it was just another weekend at WVU. As people wake up on Sunday morning or walk to class on Monday, they will see the charred bits of mattresses and ruined cars. The car fire was large enough to damage the other nearby cars as well. Unsuspecting tenants going out to have fun for the night, came home to find their cars ruined.
WVU was featured on “I’m Shmacked,” a 5-million-dollar video start-up company. "I'm Shmacked's" 21-year-old co-founders, Arya Toufanian and Jeffrie Ray, travel around to big college campuses in the U.S. to throw raucous parties and make videos showing students' over-the-top antics. WVU has shown up on their YouTube feeds. After being featured on "I’m Shmacked", the university has worked hard to improve the image of the school.
Students created the “Respectful Mountaineers” campaign to combat the bad reputation that was associated with WVU. Although students work hard in class and do volunteer services for the local community, events like these are what the public hears about and that negatively affect the reputation of our great school. WVU has made major scientific breakthroughs such as discovering the Volkswagon coverup and recently winning $750,000 from the NASA robotics mission, but it is these events that make people think it nothing more than just a major party school.
We all work hard and there is nothing wrong with partying and having fun; however, I want West Virginia University to be taken seriously when it’s on my resume. I want my future employer to think more of my alma mater than just that it is a big party school.
It may be fun to light your mattress on fire, but at the end of the day, you are sleeping on the floor. So my question is, what will West Virginia University do next?
