Numbers don’t mean much. Especially when they appear in a list without any type of context.

The U.S. Department of Education this month released its annual report on campus crime data. And once again MSU was ranked No. 1 in the nation for liquor-related violations with 852 reported infractions in 2000.

This rank is nothing new for the university that has made the category’s top slot four out of the past five years.

It’s disturbing that this numerical information, void of context, furthers negative perception of MSU as a party school.

These rankings consider very few factors. For example, according to MSU police, nearly half of the university’s alcohol-related arrests occurred during football Saturdays and only about 35 percent of those violations were committed by students.

In addition, the annual report doesn’t consider the level of law enforcement that exists around individual university campuses. It’s no secret liquor laws vary from state to state.

The survey also doesn’t calculate university population into its findings.

MSU enrolls more than 43,000 students. That is more than 2,000 more people on campus in a given day than at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which ranked second behind MSU for alcohol-related arrests in 2000.

Wisconsin was No. 1 in the same category in 1999 - with MSU in second place. In 1998, No. 1 ranked MSU was closely trailed in the second slot by the University of Michigan.

Before members of the MSU community start pointing fingers at students for drinking too much or police for being too hard on them, perhaps they should consider more factors than mindless numbers.

MSU’s true reputation will never reside in these annual crime reports. The university’s academic achievements and progress since 1855 speak many times louder.

Toast to that.