College Shorts Bonfires, Riots, Motor Oil, Oh My!

Author: Andrea Gissing

Aggie Bonfire Resurrected Off Texas A&M Campus

An unsanctioned bonfire held last week near Texas A&M University revived a tradition suspended since the collapse of a bonfire in 1999 that killed 12 people.
A group made up of current students and alumni organized and built the fire on a driving range in Magnolia, Texas, with no cooperation from the university. A crowd of more than 2,500 gathered to watch the burning of the 35-foot tall bonfire.
As the fire burned, students rehearsed cheers for A&M's football game against the University of Texas, a game that the bonfire traditionally celebrated.
The members spent almost $15,000 to try to prove that the bonfire could be built in a safe manner. Safety was emphasized during the construction of the bonfire. Machines were used to compact the logs, logs were wired together in three different places, and drinking was forbidden during construction and burning of the fire. The stack took about a month to build and was built in the middle of the driving range where irrigation pipes could keep the fires from getting out of control.
The on-campus bonfire was banned by Ray Bowen, the university's then-president, after a 59-foot high stack made up of over 5,000 logs collapsed, killing 12 people and injuring 27 on Nov. 18, 1999. A&M's new president, Robert Gates, has not yet made a decision about the future of the bonfire.

Source: The New York Times and The Battalion Online

Riots Rock Columbus, Ohio State University

After Ohio State University's (OSU) football team's greatest win of the season, celebratory disturbances broke out along Columbus, Ohio's Chittenden Avenue, 13th Avenue, 15th Avenue and High Street early morning Nov. 24, resulting in the worst riots that the city, and OSU have seen since the 1970s.
The riots resulted in approximately 20 flipped cars, nine of which were set on fire, and the arrest of at least 48 people. Four of the arrested were confirmed to be OSU students.
About 250 police officers were on duty the evening following the game against the University of Michigan, which the OSU Buckeyes won 14-9. The police had been monitoring parties in the university district, the largest gathering of which was on Chittenden Avenue. The commotion was started when a burning mattress was thrown into the middle of the avenue. The flames continued to grow as people added couches, chairs, doors, street signs and tree branches to the flames.
Police in riot gear were first seen coming towards the riots around 12:50 a.m.
Around 1:26 a.m. rioters on 13th Avenue began flipping and burning cars.
Media coverage of the riots compelled hundreds of viewers to write to the university expressing embarrassment, disgust, a call for an apology by the rioters and a demand for action by the university.
OSU Athletics Director Andy Geiger said that the OSU players worked hard to gain respect and he does not want the actions of the rioters to cloud the success of the football team. "Any connection to our season and the behavior that took place last night is a gross insult."

Source: U-Wire

Penn Students Arrested After Motor Oil Incident
Five University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) students were arrested last week following an on-campus incident involving a Princeton University student. The students' charges included aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment of another person's life, terroristic threats, conspiracy to commit a crime and possession of an instrument of crime.
According to police reports, the assault was the result of a confrontation between the UPenn students and students from Princeton University who were on campus for a weekend parliamentary debate. Approximately half an hour before the assault, between 3 and 3:30 a.m. On Nov. 16, a UPenn student entered the lounge where the Princeton students were sleeping and started to flick the lights. When asked by one of the Princeton students to leave, the UPenn student shoved him, left, and returned around 4:15 a.m. with four other UPenn students. They then proceeded to harass the student and poured motor oil over his head. They reportedly threatened to light a match and set him on fire if he did not promise to never return to the university. One of the UPenn students apparently did throw his lighted cigarette at the student who was covered in motor oil.
The five UPenn students involved eventually turned themselves in once the police obtained warrants for their arrest. All five will be charged in a criminal court. The Office of Student Conduct at UPenn is conducting a parallel investigation to the incident and will suggest university sanctions for the students involved.
The five students were believed to have been drinking at the time of the incident.

Source: The Daily Pennsylvanian