Should Events Like RutgersFest Be Canceled In The Future After This Weekend’s Near-Tragic Events At Rutgers University?
On Saturday night, tragedy nearly struck the Rutgers University campus—and some think Rutgers itself may be to blame.
The university—which came under heavy fire earlier in the month for shelling out more than $30,000 to have Jersey Shore‘s Snooki make an appearance on the campus—is catching hell after two shootings took place near the Rutgers campus resulting in five injuries and eleven arrests. Fortunately, no one was killed as a result of the mayhem which took place, but the close call has local police in New Brunswick, N.J. wondering if enough is enough at Rutgers.
The reason for all the hoopla is that Rutgers held its annual RutgersFest on Saturday—an event that welcomed more than 40,000 Rutgers students and non-Rutgers music fans to a free concert featuring Pitbull, Yelawolf, and 3OH!3. Shortly after the event ended, Rutgers provided shuttles for many of the attendees back to campus and to nearby College Avenue, where many of those same people—again, both Rutgers and non-Rutgers folks—attended parties where alcohol was served (not a shocker!) and frequented the local bars. This resulted in a scene that was initially great for business, but bad in the long run.
As a result, the police director of New Brunswick called RutgersFest “the worst thing of the year for the city of New Brunswick.” Though the university itself spent money to hire security and bring in local cops to help police the event, he doesn’t feel like the school realizes how bad the event is for the city. “We were trying to get the university to curtail this last year,” he said. “The city’s concerns over this event are falling on deaf ears.”
But, is the event really the cause for all the trouble—or does he have a point? The truth is that a near-tragic series of events like this could probably happen on just about any weekend on a college campus. Having some personal experience with the New Brunswick area, I can say that incidents like the ones that occurred at RutgersFest are not commonplace, but they’re also not completely out of the question, either. Rutgers is home to thousands of students and every weekend there are both Rutgers and non-Rutgers people roaming the streets of NB looking for a good time. That good time usually involves get liquored up—and that’s where trouble occurs.
I can also see the police director’s point, though. RutgersFest is technically a Rutgers-sanctioned event and, every year, there are thousands of people who attend the event who are not students. That’s all well and good and makes for a more successful event, but many of those people don’t care about how their behavior could negatively impact the reputation of Rutgers. They don’t care that they are making the university look bad by getting into fights at RutgersFest and acting a fool on campus. They don’t care that Rutgers gets a bad rap because of them. They don’t care because they have absolutely no ties to the school and could care less.
Then again, Rutgers is the one that’s allowing them to be there in the first place. They are promoting RutgersFest and getting students to get the word out about the event. So, don’t they deserve their share of the blame as well? The truth is that they do. And, in the future, they need to seriously consider canceling the event altogether if they can’t find a way to curtail situations like the ones that happened this weekend. Or, they need to limit the event to Rutgers students and do everything they can to prevent non-students from finding their way into the event or any of the after-parties.
If Rutgers chooses to do nothing and hold RutgersFest again, I can’t blame them. Allowing a few bad apples to ruin one of their biggest events of the year might not be the best option. But Rutgers has faced too much bad press in the last couple of years to let a one-day event do further damage. Events like these are no longer celebrations—they’re a potential black eye on major U.S. universities. And if schools can’t find a way to stop the violence, they need to put a stop to the shows. It’s the only way to make sure that near-tragic events like the ones that took place on Saturday night don’t strike again on a university’s watch.
Put into consideration that if people were just smarter and did not carry guns like what happened this year, the problem would not happen. As for Rutgers only permitting Rutgers students to attend the event, it seems a bit difficult. Sure they can control who actually goes to the concert, but a lot of the people that attend the annual event don’t only go for the concert (including myself). I’ve been to the past 3 Rutgersfest, and have not attended the concert once. Rutgers would not be able to control the non-Rutgers students from attending after parties since they are not the host of the after parties or of most of the establishments that have parties. The houses owned on College Ave, Easton Ave, Hamilton St. do not belong to Rutgers and they can not stop someone from entering the city just because they do not attend Rutgers. At most, they would have to stop the event overall, but they also know it brings in a lot of business to all the shops/bars in the area. Hoboken is having the same situation with their St. Patty’s Day parade.
as a senior at rutgers, i am extremely embarrassed and disappointed by the actions of my peers (both students and non-students of RU).
There are so many sides to this story and so many angles of opinions, but i think the bottom line comes down to money. Given the current state of the economy and tuition costs, etc, why are we still required to pay a MANDATORY fee of over 2G every school year for “campus fees” ???! these “campus fees” come out of MY pocket (or parents’ pockets for a majority of other RU students) to pay for crap like Snooki and Rutgersfest.
Do the math. If every student that lives in NJ and attends RU (im not sure what the campus fee is for out of state students) pays that much money for events and activities, I think we should have more of a say about: who we want at OUR events on OUR campus, what kinds of events we want, who we want to pay OUR money to for appearances.
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RU made the argument that Snooki was supposed to be a comedy act and over 2,000 students expressed their desire for her to make an appearance – HOWEVER, the university is responsible for using some type of discretion. Meaning, just because students WANT someone to come here, does not mean that RU should just hire anyone. I am sure that tons of students would want charlie sheen to come here, but it is up to the “scholarly” university to make the final decision about who gets paid to speak on our campus. It is not rocket science to think that a bunch of college kids would want a reality tv star to make an appearance. It is up to the school to decide what kind of message they want to portray to our university community.
In my opinion, RUfest should be canceled. There are so many better ways to spend this money (or hell, how about not making us pay it) rather than tunnel thousands upon thousands of dollars toward an event that has clearly gained the reputation for partying, drinking, and causing a ruckus. It was so horrible to drive around campus the following morning and see the destruction, garbage (beer cans, glass bottles, trash) EVERYWHERE, left behind by “students” that couldnt care about who has to clean up their mess. Fun isnt fun anymore if it is at someone elses expense, and the whole community has to pay when this kind of stuff goes wrong.
The Snooki situation and RutgersFest tragedy are just the tip of the iceberg for the ridiculously negative view NJ students have of Rutgers. I was a potential RU student, and I’m turning down the full ride there; while I was never the hugest fan of Rutgers to begin with, events such as this and the Snooki incident have convinced me this is NOT where I want to spend my next four years.
With regret for the loss of a longstanding Rutgers tradition, and with admiration for the students who worked hard to plan and run the concert this year, I have decided that the university can no longer continue to hold Rutgersfest.
As you may know, the concert this past Friday, April 15, drew tens of thousands of people to the Busch campus in Piscataway. These included not only Rutgers students but also many individuals and groups not affiliated with Rutgers, who learned about Rutgersfest through various social media channels beyond the university’s control. A large crowd descended on New Brunswick’s 5th and 6th wards after the concert for a night of partying. Anticipating this, the University had worked with the City of New Brunswick in advance to plan for the possibility of disruptive behavior. Among other steps, we provided for several dozen additional New Brunswick and Rutgers police officers.
However, even this additional police presence did not contain the disorder that occurred Friday night and early Saturday morning. Many streets were congested with people and there were multiple reports of disruptive conduct. Near the College Avenue campus there were many rowdy student house parties, incidents of public intoxication, littering, and vandalism, and several altercations among students and other individuals. Most disturbing to report, four non-Rutgers people were shot in three incidents during the course of the evening. The fact that none of these shootings resulted in life-threatening injuries does not diminish their violence, and I am gravely concerned about the danger to our students and our neighbors.
I understand that the decision to end Rutgersfest will disappoint many, and I want to thank the students and administrators who organized the concert, working hard to promote responsible behavior and to make it a safe and enjoyable experience. But the safety of our university community, and that of our neighbors, is paramount, and we cannot risk further danger or the possible loss of life. The problems that occur following Rutgersfest have grown beyond our capacity to manage them, and the only responsible course of action is to cancel the event.
This is ridiculous it is definitely not Rutgers’ fault that those kids shot. First off, the shooters were not students and neither were the victims.
If anything they should blame the residents of New Brunswick. I mean have any of you actually taken the time out to walk through that cesspool? Sure New Brunswick is no Camden or Newark, but it isn’t exactly safe either.
Maybe the NBPD should stop blaming Rutgers for their inability to protect the public. They should step their game up and try a different approach in order combat crime in New Brunswick.
I’m a Rutgers student and honestly, there were so many people drinking on their own. Nobody wants to open their house to the immense crowd there was. All the insanity was committed by the drunken minds of the attendees, Rutgers students or not. RutgersFest is a bunch of Rutgers and non-Rutgers students including high schoolers attend assuming they’ll find some party to go to. Also, New Brunswick isn’t the greatest of towns and the school is located in a dangerous city. Having all types of people attend while at the same time intoxicated is just the problem. The problem here is, college students use RutgersFest to drink heavily. I drink Thursday, Friday, Saturday and I did not drink on RutgersFest for the precise reason I knew there would be no parties to go to. Just a bunch of chaos on the streets. RutgersFest was in fact cancelled from here on out.
I would just like to point out how Kim’s comment was a bit hypocritical. At one point, you complain that the STUDENTS should have a say in who is invited to speak on campus, but then you say that the university should use discretion (censor) events so as to prevent controversy. As a Rutgers student yourself, you do understand that these events are hosted by RUPA, which is entirely made up of STUDENTS, right? Essentially, the students are choosing. And one needs to understand that there will always be events that not EVERYONE agrees with…it’s life. Enough of your fellow students showed an interest in seeing Snooki that they had to split it up into 2 shows. I wouldn’t blame Rutgers administration for this problem…I’d blame your fellow classmates for being complete tools.
However, I do agree with how exorbitant the fees are, and that there is no real transparency as far as which events your fellow student representatives choose for you on campus. A NJ lawmaker is actually in the process of trying to pass legislation that would give students the right to opt out of paying for certain events that they find objectionable. I think this would be a much better option than doing away with the fees altogether.
I’m a Rutgers Alum. I graduated in 2008 and have to say that Rutgersfest has always been one of the coolest events that students could look forward to every year. What disappoints me is that the university acted so rashly in axing the event, rather than putting it on a hiatus until they could come up with a safer way to run the event. I personally don’t think that any non-Rutgers affiliate should be able to attend the event. The students are paying for it and all the non-Rutgers attendees are causing the problems. They have no loyalty to Rutgers, they could care less if their behavior is going to negatively affect the university. Ax them instead. Yeah, it might be a little difficult to weed out the non-Rutgers people, but we are a great state university…we can find a way.
And I’d also like to note how disappointed I am in the NBPD. They are nothing but a waste of taxpayer dollars in this town. It’s no surprise that the director wants to pass the blame onto the university. This event has been going on for so long, it’s not like they didn’t know what could possibly happen. They didn’t prepare enough, and what happened is a direct result of that.
As a student, I had a disgusting experience with them. My housemates and I decided to have a house party at the end of the year (because we were all graduating). We invited a bunch of our friends, but like all college parties, uninvited people showed up and it got a little rowdy. Eventually the cops showed up (because the NBPD like to waste their time patrolling for house parties for financial profits rather than protect the public from all the crime that goes on around here). Anyways, all of my housemates were girls and we were all 21. Once everyone was gone, the cops decided to hang out in our house harassing us. Literally, trying to flirt with us and acting like pigs. I was absolutely disgusted.
So yeah, there is a lot of blame to pass around. What bothers me is how everyone likes to blame each other and point fingers at the other party rather than take responsibility for their own lack of competence.
I’m very disappointed that this event was cancelled. It’s sad that a bunch of non-Rutgers teenagers had to go and ruin it for all the students who actually paid for and deserved the event. It was a great event that always signaled the end of the year coming up. And I’m sure no one else is going to say it, but I’m sure the concert line-up had a bit to do with the violence that ensued later on…just sayin’ haha.