Editorial Columns

University Deplores Beaver Avenue Incident

The early-morning hours of Sunday, July 12, were disturbing and frustrating for all of us who are part of this great community -- area residents, University students, faculty and staff, local police, officials from State College and surrounding municipalities and visitors to the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. Together, we deplore the senseless and destructive actions of participants in the disturbance on Beaver Avenue.

We also join in commending the actions of the police and other officials who responded thoughtfully and decisively to quell the disturbance -- officers from State College, University Park, Bellefonte, Patton and Ferguson and Spring townships, and state police from Bedford and Lewistown -- as well as the actions of courageous Penn State students and private citizens who risked injury to prevent damage to private property.

Our gratitude also goes to volunteers from the Alpha fire and ambulance companies and representatives from Allegheny Power and the Centre Area Transportation Authority, who also gave assistance. I want all of them to know how much I personally value their actions.

I was on the scene Sunday morning to see if I could be helpful, and I was impressed by the efforts of police and private individuals to deal with the situation. State College police had never seen a disturbance of this magnitude before, and they and the other police forces they called in for assistance were restrained and professional in their efforts under extremely trying circumstances.

They had to mobilize special crowd control equipment. They had to make sure that fire equipment was on hand. They had to get the assistance of the power company to deal with the live wires from the overturned streetlight poles. They lined up emergency medical technicians to deal with the potential injuries. At one point a number of people in the crowd began to turn on the police. The police were attacked with bottles and other debris; I even saw a brick and a chair being thrown.

The property damage was excessive and inexcusable. It could have been much worse, and we can be grateful that it wasn't. Penn State understands that students enrolled at the University were among those arrested during the disturbance. Each case involving a Penn State student will be referred to our Judicial Affairs Office and fully adjudicated according to our customary policies. Let me add that a large portion of the crowd included high school students, alumni and visitors to the community who were not affiliated with the University; we must also be concerned that visitors to our community would engage in such behavior.

We understand that many people look to the University for a solution to the problem of inappropriate behavior by students, especially when the illegal or irresponsible use of alcohol is involved. As president of Penn State, I have been saying for two years that the excessive consumption of alcohol is the major problem facing American higher education today. Because Penn State faces this problem no less than other schools, I have called on the University to strengthen its programs dealing with the problem. We will continue to do so vigorously. Incidents like the one on Beaver Avenue this weekend indicate that society is a long way from solving this problem.

Although we have made important progress in addressing the incidence and consequences of binge drinking over the last two years, we still have a long way to go.

The University will be working closely with the Borough of State College, the Downtown State College Partnership, and community leaders in the coming weeks to ensure that we are doing everything possible to avoid such incidents in the future and to make sure that State College and Penn State continue to be hospitable environments for visitors and our own residents.