No one knows what will happen this April, but a big, supervised party isn't going to prevent anything.
With a number of incidents in the past few years, MSU has acquired a reputation as a "riot" school.
All eyes are on MSU by the time March Madness rolls around, wondering if it will happen again.
But MSU officials haven't been sitting back and crossing their fingers that things go smoothly this season. The joint MSU and East Lansing Celebrations Committee has been looking into the possibility of creating a designated area for students to gather and celebrate.
Recently, the committee administered a survey to get student perspectives on this possibility.
The survey included questions about students' plans before, during and after basketball games and what students would like to see out of a planned event following a game.
Although the results showed over half of the students surveyed would be willing to participate in a planned event, MSU officials said there wasn't strong enough evidence that a single planned event would be effective.
And it's not surprising.
Unless MSU can find a way to make the event extremely appealing to students, it won't really be effective. Especially if it's tamed by tons of police and more like a heavily chaperoned school dance.
Let's face it: Many of the student they hope to attract (the ones that might cause problems) will want alcohol, a live concert, celebrities and lots of room to hang around.
Blocking off a street to provide students with an area to celebrate freely might be a more effective option.
And even though the availability of open alcohol ranked low in the survey results of what would make the event appealing, we can't ignore that it would affect students' decisions on where to celebrate.
The event also might not attract who the event was meant to target — the few who instigate trouble. The type of student revelers who are most likely to create a disturbance are the ones who are least likely to show up to a planned postgame event.
Most students want to be where the action is, they want the ability to celebrate freely and they want to be with their friends — even if they're under 21.
It doesn't seem the planned event will be effective enough to quell a potential disturbance.
But it was a good idea in theory and we can give the Celebrations Committee credit for that.
