2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
UMass grapples with party image
Sruthi Valluri, Collegian Staff
Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: News
Editor's note - The following article is part of a series covering violence on campus.
By midnight, the party at Amherst College begins to look familiar. Students are drunk out of their minds - or getting there with dedicated efficiency - and there is someone passed out on the couch. A week later, a party at Mount Holyoke offers the same experience. It doesn't take long to match these scenes with something familiar: a party at the University of Massachusetts.
But while partying cultures at all three colleges are almost identical, UMass receives more media attention for the drinking habits of its students. A simple in-ternet search of 'UMass' and 'drinking' yields nearly 200,000 results. The same search for any of the other Five College schools or other schools in the UMass sys-tem offers no relevant sites.
To add to the double standard, only UMass deals with the stereotype of be-ing a university with a large, violent student body that can lose control under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
One of the first hits on Google is an Urbandictionary.com definition of the University. UMass has "insane amounts of partying," according to the post, mostly because "there is nothing better to do." A Wikipedia article agrees, as do countless other student blogs and informal college ranking Web sites.
This image of UMass inspired the nickname ZooMass and won the Univer-sity the No. 8 spot on Princeton Review's ranking of the biggest party schools of 2005. UMass avoided the list for the past two years, but the stereotype lingers. A recent string of violent events has only heightened the media attention on UMass.
Edward F. Blaguszewski, a spokesman for UMass, said that this problem stems partly from the University's size. With 19,299 undergraduate students, the Amherst campus is one of the largest institutions in Massachusetts.
"For lack of a better term, we're the 900-pound gorilla in the higher educa-tion world in Massachusetts," said Blaguszewski.
By midnight, the party at Amherst College begins to look familiar. Students are drunk out of their minds - or getting there with dedicated efficiency - and there is someone passed out on the couch. A week later, a party at Mount Holyoke offers the same experience. It doesn't take long to match these scenes with something familiar: a party at the University of Massachusetts.
But while partying cultures at all three colleges are almost identical, UMass receives more media attention for the drinking habits of its students. A simple in-ternet search of 'UMass' and 'drinking' yields nearly 200,000 results. The same search for any of the other Five College schools or other schools in the UMass sys-tem offers no relevant sites.
To add to the double standard, only UMass deals with the stereotype of be-ing a university with a large, violent student body that can lose control under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
One of the first hits on Google is an Urbandictionary.com definition of the University. UMass has "insane amounts of partying," according to the post, mostly because "there is nothing better to do." A Wikipedia article agrees, as do countless other student blogs and informal college ranking Web sites.
This image of UMass inspired the nickname ZooMass and won the Univer-sity the No. 8 spot on Princeton Review's ranking of the biggest party schools of 2005. UMass avoided the list for the past two years, but the stereotype lingers. A recent string of violent events has only heightened the media attention on UMass.
Edward F. Blaguszewski, a spokesman for UMass, said that this problem stems partly from the University's size. With 19,299 undergraduate students, the Amherst campus is one of the largest institutions in Massachusetts.
"For lack of a better term, we're the 900-pound gorilla in the higher educa-tion world in Massachusetts," said Blaguszewski.
Viewing Comments 1 - 8 of 9
L33to
posted 4/14/08 @ 2:54 AM EST
Silly students!
Have none of you ever partaken in the Water of Life??
Try it once, take my word for it.
Innocent Bystander
posted 4/14/08 @ 4:29 AM EST
The only difference between the UMass of the 1970s and today is the political views, instead of liberals revolting against conservative administrators, there now are conservative "Dunkin Donuts Democrats" revolting against liberal administrators. (Continued…)
neil
posted 4/14/08 @ 7:53 AM EST
Sounds like a good assignment! Go to Five College parties and right an article.
The article observes excessive drinking at many of the the five colleges and reasonably concludes that binge drinking occurs on all of the campuses. (Continued…)
Recent Grad
posted 4/14/08 @ 1:20 PM EST
I think Neil has a point about large group behavior vs. small group behavior, but not all the people at UMass parties are from UMass. During the riots of 2002 and 2004, there were quite a few Amherst (College and HS) students participating. (Continued…)
Correction
posted 4/14/08 @ 2:18 PM EST
UMass was #9 party school in 2005 and the #7 in 2007. Check your facts.
anon
valars
posted 4/14/08 @ 10:17 PM EST
well, there are some good points, but i think you guys are over-intellectualizing the situation a bit. kids who are frustrated with the administration and it's myopic constraints on student liberties go out and protest. (Continued…)
Dingleberry Dan
posted 4/15/08 @ 12:43 AM EST
I won-der if you've ever ta-ken a class in the eng-lish language, and if they taught you to use a hy-phen in every oth-er word like that. Just an ob-servation. (Continued…)
no
posted 4/15/08 @ 7:59 PM EST
i think theyre hyphened because they were in an article and to fit the columns they probably had to, so not so good of an insult
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