UPUA plans to join with other on-campus organizations -- including all four greek councils -- in a public campaign to re-direct the 4th Annual State Patty's Day and "promote actions that will not bring shame to our university."
So far, about 33 student organizations have signed on to co-sponsor a "State Patty's Day 'Safe and Responsible Actions' Pledge" that will run as a full-page advertisement in the Daily Collegian, said Student Life and Diversity Chairman Christian Ragland.
Ragland (junior-political science) presented a prototype of the pledge to the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) at Wednesday night's general assembly meeting. This draft was also the design approved by the other organizations that signed on to support the stance alongside UPUA.
The proposed design leads with the phrase "May no act of ours bring shame?" followed by a list of crime and alcohol-related statistics from the 2009 State Patty's Day holiday. At the bottom of the draft, the design also includes the stanza from Penn State's alma mater from which its heading was taken.
Ragland said this design satisfied reservations expressed by some student leaders about advocating against the holiday altogether, and instead focuses on calling into question the destructive behavior seen during the event in past years.
"Instead of taking a stance that said 'Get rid of State Patty's Day altogether,' [the organizations] were comfortable with signing something that promotes a stance of 'Let's not have what we had last year,' " he said. "We don't support 'acts of shame' like this."
The final design, however, will be approved by UPUA at the organization's next meeting, primarily in light of dissent among some members regarding the rhetoric of the current draft. Several members at the meeting said the pledge as it stands carries an air of condescension towards the student body.
"I don't know about you guys, but this ad seems awfully damning and sort of pretentious," said Eberly College of Science Representative Pat Byrne (senior-chemistry).
Internal Development Chairman Dustin Dove also called the ad's approach into question, saying he did not oppose the design of the pledge but wondered whether this initiative indicated an attempt by UPUA to overstep its role as student representatives.
"It feels a little 'administrative-y' to me," Dove (senior-secondary education) said. "I like the bombastic style, don't have any problems in general with this, but is it talking down to students?"
Governmental Affairs Committee Vice-Chairman Nathan Andrews also questioned whether this was the best approach to take.
"It seems like we're playing a moral 'Big Brother' here," Andrews (senior-engineering) said. "How many of you have had a drink underage? You do realize that you're condemning other people for the same thing you do all the time."
But UPUA Programming Vice Chairman Josh Crawford said he disagreed with this interpretation.
"I don't think this has the Big Brother mentality -- it's really saying, 'We screwed up last year, let's not do that again,' " Crawford (sophomore-crime, law and justice) said. "It's not saying 'Don't go out,' it's not saying 'Don't have a good time' ... It's saying 'Don't be an idiot.' "
Blake Bonnewell, an off-campus representative, said the intent also shows that multiple student organizations don't want to see last year's statistics happen again.
"As far as the architecture of the language on this ad ... the intent is to say we messed up last year ... and here's a list of every other student organization who says they don't want to be part of the problem," Bonnewell (junior-mechanical engineering) said.
Ragland said this is the first of several initiatives UPUA plans to undertake to steer students away from excessive alcohol consumption this State Patty's Day, and also to prevent these patterns of behavior during similar annual events like the Blue-White Game and the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.
"We can't just stop here," he said. "This is really an opportunity to lay a foundation for other events in the future."
