Morgantown’s Fight for Inclusivity

On By Sadie Janes3 Comments
by Sadie Janes

When it comes to states with a reputation for being accommodating to the LGBTQ community, West Virginia is almost certainly near the bottom of the list. However, many in Morgantown are working to change that reputation so that those who identify as LGBTQ can feel more at home in our home among the hills.

While many states have adopted laws in recent years to both protect and include the LGTBQ community, West Virginia seems to be slow to join them. The state government, like I’ve pointed out in previous posts, is often the main hurdle to progress. During the 2018 session, 9 LGBTQ protection bills died in the Legislature. More recently, WV Delegate Eric Porterfield compared the LGTBQ community to the Ku Klux Klan and used a homophobic slur during a committee meeting. Unfortunately, Delegate Porterfield had even more to say on the subject, and when you Google search “WV delegate,” his hateful comments are among the first results.

https://twitter.com/JakeJarvisWV/status/1094823914973421568

Despite what’s going on in Charleston, people in Morgantown continue to push for LGBTQ inclusion. On Saturday, Morgantown hosted its first ever Pride block party. According to WDTV, hundreds were in attendance and the event spanned several blocks. Local businesses set up booths to sell their refreshments and other items, while organizations like WV Free and Fairness West Virginia promoted their respective causes at the event. While some in attendance had attended Pride celebrations in bigger cities in the past, having a more local event focus on LGBTQ acceptance and inclusion was probably refreshing to native West Virginians.

Along with the success of the Pride block party, Morgantown also recently established its first ever chapter of PFLAG, an organization that focuses on uniting members of the LGBTQ community with their family and allies. The Morgantown chapter had its first meeting on April 9. Two state delegates from Monongalia county — Del. Barbara Fleischauer and Del. Danielle Walker — were in attendance at the PFLAG meeting, standing in sharp contrast with their homophobic colleague Delegate Porterfield.

Those who identify as LGBTQ have always faced discrimination in the United States, and it’s possible that discrimination is on rise for the first time in years. A new GLAAD poll showed Americans were more uncomfortable with the LGBTQ community in 2018 than they were the year before. Though we might be tempted to think time is always on the side of progress, it’s important to not take the change that’s come in recent years for granted, and to continue to fight for marginalized groups — especially in largely homogenous states like West Virginia. The city of Morgantown seems to be leading the way in that regard.

https://twitter.com/caseyjohnsonwv/status/1117188896117415937

Spruce Street: Snow Day Party or Riot?

On By lyndseymoran6 Comments

Bitter cold temperatures and persistent snowfall welcomed students back to WVU’s campus for the 2019 spring semester. On Jan. 30, WVU announced classes would be cancelled due to the frigid weather; the cancelations ran from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1. Rather than staying in the warm indoors, roughly 900 students took to Spruce Street to celebrate the five day weekend.

Students sledding and partying on Spruce Street.
An example of snow day festivities.
@wvubarstool posted a ‘man on the street’/montage of the Spruce Street party on Instagram.

The intoxicated sledding and skiing was halted due to the Morgantown Police, WVU PD, and Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department deeming the gathering a ‘riot’.

After warning the crowd to disperse, a fire was lit and beer bottles and rocks were thrown in response. Officers deployed smoke grenades and then pepper ball munitions towards a crowd.

On March 6, MPD served arrest warrants to 11 people that were identified and involved during the ‘riot’.

This is not an isolated incident for WVU. In 2016, Winter Storm Jonas caused the university to close. Students celebrated the cancelled classes by partying on Spruce Street.

While the gathering was popular, it was not considered a riot by police. Could the split reactions to the Spruce Street incidents be due to the student’s behavior or is the push for a culture shift at WVU attempting to crack down on any event that may cause negative press? WVU is already hindered with a party school reputation.

As Sadie Janes wrote this week on My Reputation, a culture change to dissolve the negative reputations has been present on WVU’s campus. There is a clear divide between the university administration, its supporters, and some students that are responding to those initiatives with a pushback.

In relation to Spruce Street parties, the disagreement between students and the university/police on whether the Spruce Street incident was a riot or merely a party, parallels the aforementioned divide.

https://twitter.com/_kriswolfe/status/1091482274661654529
https://twitter.com/JakeJarvisWV/status/1091840502553632768

The university may be in a position where they are responsible to respond/correct such behaviors. All of the press will directly reflect the WVU community and its reputation.

Barstool is bad for WVU

On By Cody Nespor11 Comments

The party culture at WVU and the content at Barstool Sports go together like frat parties and cheap beer. Last week on My Reputation Lyndsey Moran wrote about Barstool’s presence at WVU and how Barstool is larger at WVU than other notable party schools. In this article, I will build on that and examine the relationship between Barstool and the WVU community.

The WVU Barstool logo.

There is not much that I can write about Barstool that has not been written already. It’s a sports/pop culture blog that specializes in sexism, harassment and cyberbullying that is unapologetic about anything that it does. None of these claims are really even objectionable, Barstool’s own CEO, Erika Nardini, has acknowledged as much, “if I came into Barstool apologizing for every time Barstool offended someone over the last 14 years, I basically would not do anything else in my job, but I don’t believe in that” (from Business Insider).

This is the website that landed a show on ESPN, but couldn’t make it last for more than one episode because they can’t stop harassing Sam Ponder, was recently exposed for stealing from and then harassing a female comedian and has made the founder of Deadspin question if he is to blame for all of the hate in the sports world. There is basically nothing redeemable about Barstool and yet college students can’t seem to get enough of it.

Plainly, Barstool isn’t exactly the kind of company or brand that many people would want to associate themselves with, however, it’s undeniable that Barstool is enormously successful. A cursory look over the WVU Barstool Twitter and Instagram accounts shows that there are students who fully buy into the culture Barstool wants to promote.

This post of a student pouring milk on himself in front of the MountainLair has over 31,600 views.

This woman practicing her champagne drinking skills has over 42,00 views.

Finally, this video has WVU Barstool’s most popular recently with over 331,000 views.

None of these videos seem like favorable ways for a college student to present themselves online, however, the prospect of views and notoriety within this college subculture Barstool has created, we see that students are willing to spray themselves with alcohol, make fools of themselves in public and even put themselves in harm’s way.

This is not to say that college students did not do anything stupid before Barstool, but Barstool both clearly facilitates this kind of behavior and also acts as an aggregate for all these videos to be posted at the same place.

I acknowledge there is an argument that college students should be allowed to have fun, but part of being an adult is learning how to balance the good with the bad, fun with responsibility and I’m not sure I can see any good coming out of Barstool.

What Happened to FallFest?

On By Patrick Downey5 Comments

Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, 21 Savage, are all big names that have performed at WVU’s annual FallFest. The festival has always been a hit, but is it not as great as it used to be?

With the Spring semester coming to a rapid close, most WVU students will be returning home for the summer. Upon students return, WVU will kick off the new school year with FallFest, which if you think about it, really isn’t that far away.

FallFest started at WVU all the way back in 1995, and has been going ever since. The concert has seen a couple different locations on the downtown campus, such as the grass between the Business and Economics Building and Life Sciences Building and the Mountainlair Green. However, since 2016 the festival has taken place on the Evansdale campus near the Recreation Center. The move created quite the uproar from WVU students as most prefer the concert to be downtown, because of the easier access to partying. A student in 2015 actually recorded his entire day leading up to FallFest and posted it to Youtube. This video is a great depiction of what the area around the  Mountainlair and frat row used to look like on the day of FallFest.

 

Here’s a tweet from WVU Barstool expressing their opinions on FallFest. As you can see from the video, 2014 FallFest was pretty insane.

https://twitter.com/WVUBarstool/status/1007312149872631810

The official reasoning behind the move from Downtown to Evansdale was based of a engineering study of the plaza outside the Mountainlair. WVU officials started to become concerned with the safety of the plaza when being heavily used. One WVU official, John Bolt said, “I don’t know how much weight would be too much for the plaza to handle, but for the kids playing basketball, they should be fine to use the plaza.” After all, the plaza is located directly above a parking garage, imagine the disaster that would be if it were to fall through.

Bolt made sure to mention that “WVU is committed to continuing FallFest, this is not some sort of backdoor way to move it out the door. No, we’re committed to continuing it.” Apparently, moving the concert to Evansdale wasn’t even WVU’s first choice. The school considered moving it back to the area between the B&E Building and LSB and even Woodburn Circle, but they just weren’t practical enough.

Kristie Stewart- Gale, the marketing and advertising manager for the school, thought the change could make the event even better. She said, “You know, I look at it as change. Change is hard, and people kind of look at it and say, ‘Oh no.’ It’s going to be a great event and just as enjoyable, if not more so, than it was on the plaza.”

According to some WVU students, FallFest is not a great or enjoyable anymore. Students expressed their opinions on Twitter last year following @wvuevents tweet showing the lineup which featured Lil Yachty, Brothers Osbourne, and Misterwives.

Screen Shot 2019-04-10 at 1.13.59 PM

Screen Shot 2019-04-10 at 1.14.18 PM

Whether it’s the location of the concert or who is performing, something isn’t working and students aren’t happy. WVU puts hundreds of thousands of dollars into this festival every year, is it going to waste? Obviously, something needs to be done for students to get as excited for FallFest as in the past.

WVU’s Joe Mama’s knocked out of best college bar bracket

On By robertpotesta2 Comments

High Street bar Joe Mamas made a solid run in 5th Year’s college-town bar bracket, they made it clear to the elite 8 before being outvoted by Rutgers bar, the Scarlet Pub.

It was neck and neck for most of the match up, but Rutgers broke away just before the polls closed. Even though it’s debatable whether or not WVU’s involvement was beneficial at all, tons of people were still outraged. I get it, especially for schools that didn’t make the actual NCAA tournament, this is kind of all they have. It serves as a fun, alternative, replacement for universities that didn’t get to participate in the legitimate “March Madness”. I can definitely see why people get into it as much as they do, even if it may not shine your school in the most positive light.

https://twitter.com/BigSeanQ/status/1113871656357961728

But whats a good contest without controversy? Like anyone on the losing side of a poll, Joe Mamas fans instantaneously demanded a recount. And from there, the accusations began.

https://twitter.com/WVUBarstool/status/1113864810360377345

Apparently, around 4 am, votes on Rutgers side hit a drastic spike. Something like 200 votes were coming in every 10 minutes, which is clearly unlikely, especially for that time of day.

https://twitter.com/WVUBarstool/status/1113865544925700098

Unfortunately this “matchup” is just a Twitter poll, so there’s no real way to prove whether or not someone’s cheating. Buying bot votes is an extremely easy way to completely rig the contest, I’d honestly be surprised if that didn’t happen somewhere along the way anyway. Literally all you have to do is google “buy twitter votes” and browse the loads of websites that exist, I even found one that offered 100,000 votes in exchange for $2600.

https://twitter.com/WVUBarstool/status/1113887152021082112

So Scarlet Pub’s excuse that they’re not “suddenly a tech expert who knows how to use bots” doesn’t really hold up. The sad thing is that we’ll probably never know. Everyone’s innocent until proven guilty, and on a platform like a Twitter poll, there’s no available evidence.

The Culture Change: Is it possible without community cooperation?

On By Sadie Janes5 Comments

Since 2014, those in power at West Virginia University have pushed for a ‘culture change’ — a shift away from a reputation of couch burning and binge drinking, and toward academic achievement and community outreach. Those are noble goals, but are they possible if the students and community don’t support them?

It seems the inciting incidents for culture change are two-fold: the Baylor riots and the death of WVU freshman Nolan Burch. Both the riots and Burch’s death — which was due to alcohol poisoning from a fraternity initiation event — happened during the fall 2014 semester. It’s likely that the University pontificated on changing WVU’s party reputation before then, but the culture change became more than just words after those two incidents. People demanded action.

Some students aren’t confident in WVU’s ability to facilitate culture change.

However, right now it feels like many — students and community members alike — are content to abandon the culture change and lean in to the stereotypes. A prominent example is the disassociation of many WVU fraternities. WVU released a statement last August, entitled “Reaching the Summit: Plan for Excellence for Fraternity & Sorority Life,” outlining new, stricter regulations for Greek organizations on campus. The statement outlines issues that have plagued Greek life. Some problems with fraternities and sororities are to be expected, like the underage consumption of alcohol and hosting of unsanctioned events. Some incidents were more worrisome, like physical altercations, hazing incidents, and sexual misconduct that was reported.

The overall conclusion of the report was that Greek life at WVU needed to change, and some Greeks got on board. However, a few fraternities decided not to recognize stricter regulations and chose to disassociate from WVU. The benefit to the fraternities is that they’re no longer beholden to the harsher rules, but there are a whole host of drawbacks. They can’t participate in school-sanctioned events, receive grants from WVU, or even meet and recruit on campus. The University has concerns about student safety now that certain frats are no longer affiliated with WVU, since they can no longer help in instances of sexual assault or other bodily harm.

Obviously, some Greeks are not fond of President Gee.

What President Gee and the University saw as an opportunity to shift the culture and help ensure student safety, many students saw as a violation of their rights. The same is true of Campus Carry. However, with Campus Carry, the students who were in favor had many community members and a large portion of the state legislature on their side. President Gee has long said that he wants local control of the issue — that is, he wants to be able to decide at the University level how best to keep students safe. Guns on campus seems counterproductive to his aim of fewer violent incidents as part of a wider culture change.

While the Student Government Association passed a proclamation against the bill, some SGA senators voted against said proclamation. Students at large were vocal — both in support of and against the legislation. Members of one of the disassociated fraternities even yelled their support for the legislation at the Daily Athenaeum’s editor, along with “Build the wall.”


With so many examples of push back from the student body — and even some from the legislature and the community — can the culture change be achieved? Will it always be one step forward, one step back at WVU? It seems as if many have forgotten what made the change so necessary in the first place.

Local Morgantown bar featured in best college bar bracket, but is that a good thing?

On By Cody Nespor1 Comment

In the inaugural podcast from My Reputation, the gang discusses Morgantown bar Joe Mama’s inclusion in a “best college bar bracket” run by pop culture blog Barstool Sports. On this podcast, you will hear Cody Nespor and Patrick Downey in the first segment talk about some of the issues related to Barstool and why some people prefer to steer clear of it. In the second segment, Rob Podesta, Sadie Janes and Lyndsey Moran discuss whether or not being associated with Barstool is a good thing for WVU and Joe Mama’s.

At the time of this recording, Joe Mama’s was in the elite eight of the bracket matched up with Rutgers Univerity’s Scarlet Pub. Since then, Joe Mama’s actually lost to the Scarlet Pub and the owner posted a thank you to the Morgantown community for their support.

Barstool – Made by the People, For the People

On By lyndseymoran6 Comments

In the age of social media, WVU students are not only interesting in downloading Tinder to land a possible hook-up or connect with family and friends through wholesome posts via Facebook – Barstool, a popular media company, is thriving off the party scene at WVU and other universities.

Their social platform feeds are a collection of posts featuring sports, binge-drinking, alcohol induced stunts, pranks, and humorous videos. For some students, being featured on the account is on the top of their college bucket list. What’s wrong with risky behavior when thousands of people will like, comment, and tag their friends?

Recently, Barstool has started a March Madness style bracket for well known bars at various universities to compete with one another. Morgantown’s very own Joe Mamas was placed at the number 1 seed.

https://twitter.com/5thYear/status/1113934905073917953

After dominating and making it to the elite eight, Joe Mamas lost to Scarlet Pub from Rutgers University.

However, WVU Barstool is not the only ‘party school’ focused social media platform that has gained major popularity. WVU Crushes (@wvucrushes_) on instagram posts videos and pictures that have been sent to them via direct messages. From only starting their account back in 2018, the account has attracted 8,333 in less than a year.

Two similar accounts are WVU Afterdark on Snapchat and DubVnightlife on twitter. While the snapchat account focuses on posting embarrassing and funny videos/pictures from students’ evening extracurriculars, DubVnightlife mostly posts about drink specials and events happening on High Street.

Barstool is not unique to WVU, as many universities have active Barstool accounts. WVU is known to be a party school but what are the ‘party social media’ accounts like for other universities that are notorious for their party scene?

University of Alabama’s Barstool has generated 21.4k on twitter and 57.1k on instagram. Also, University of Wisconsin’s Barstool on twitter sits at 26.4k followers and 52k on instagram.

It’s not surprising that WVU’s Barstool on twitter sweeps the competition with 73.5k followers.

University Relations and others certainly do not enjoy the negative reputation Barstool and the ‘party culture’ may give WVU. However, something all of these party social media accounts have in common is that they cannot function without people sending/tagging them in posts to be featured on the account. The party accounts are merely platforms but students are the content creators.

People have a lot to say about WVU in comments sections, and it’s not all good

On By Cody Nespor5 Comments

This will not come as a surprise to anyone who frequents the internet, but comments sections are not the idea-generating open forums of discussion that people thought they would be.

The comments sections of news websites specifically are very, very bad. For one reason or another, the comments sections of news sites are filled often with trolls who are more interested in starting fights and making people mad than engaging in any sort of substantial conversation.

Despite this, however, comments sections are still a way to try and discern how people feel about a certain subject or story, even if their comments are mean or inflammatory. Using the Spruce Street riot from earlier this year and the arrests that were recently made from it, we can take a look at how some people feel about WVU students when they are at their rowdiest.

The following comments come from the comments sections from three WV Metro News articles and one Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article. The actual articles are, “No charges yet as police, WVU investigate snow-day block party“, “Morgantown Police chief: Snow day incident involving WVU students ‘entirely avoidable‘”, “More arrests likely in Morgantown snow day riot; WVU not expected to take action against fraternities“, and “Snow day celebration turns into a disturbance at West Virginia University“.

Most of the comments fell into three categories; insulting or making fun of WVU students, defending the students/blaming the police, and complaining about Morgantown not plowing the roads.

Many of the comments directing negativity towards the students focused on insinuating that they were children and saying that they were drunk.

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Many of them call the students “kids”, “children” or “brats” and a few say “adults” in all capitals in such a way as to insinuate that the students were not acting like adults.

Many of the comments blaming the police say that the kids were just having fun and that nothing escalated until the police were called and showed up.

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The comments about the city plowing streets have been omitted because they do not really add to this discussion, however, the other two categories of comments actually have a sort of explanation behind them.

In a book titled “Party School: Crime, Campus, and Community” (which is ironically written about WVU) the different perceptions people have about party schools are explored.

Basically, the author, Karen Weiss, says that people who go to party schools and heavily party see it as their right to do so.

“In fact, they regard themselves as having a ‘right’ to party and bitterly resent other students and community residents who complain about their loudness and rowdy activities. Weiss observes that the partiers ‘are often so assured in their ‘right to party’ that they are disrespectful toward police, indignant toward persons who complain, and unconcerned about how their behaviors affect others who live and work in the college community.'”

This thinking can clearly be seen in some of the comments, a lot of them say something along the lines of the city should have just let the students have fun and not plow the street. The problem with both of these types of comments is that they refuse to see it from another perspective.

All of the following can be true; the students were just having fun on a snow day, the city needed to plow the street, the police’s presence escalated the situation, students should not have thrown things, and the police did not have to come equipped in riot gear.

The people in these comments sections however really only fall into one of two camps when talking about these party school students partying, either the students did nothing wrong or the students are solely at fault.

While comments sections are notoriously bad, it is interesting to see how many of the comments line up into these two frameworks, and the language that is used against the students tells a lot about what people think about WVU.

Should Bars Close Earlier?

On By Patrick Downey6 Comments

Arguably one of the worst things a college student wants to hear on a night out: “Last call, finish your drinks.” Could bartenders be saying these very words even earlier in the future?

All bars and clubs have to have a closing time, most places around the United States have that time set at around 2 a.m. West Virginia’s last call is 2 a.m or 3 a.m with a club license, which is uncommon.

In November of 2017 the Morgantown City Council discussed a possible change for last call. City Councilor Ryan Wallace said, “The topic was brought up as a way to improve High Street by limiting some of the bar-related incidents, alcohol-related incidents that happen late at night.” If you’ve been on High Street on the weekends past midnight you know exactly what Wallace is talking about. Obviously the later bars stay open the more intoxicated people get, causing more students nights to end with talking to the police.

Image result for wvu high street
Morgantown’s High Street

The Council ultimately reached a decision to not change the last call time, due to some interesting reasons. It seems as if Morgantown officials are more concerned with the impact it would have on the revenue of these bars and clubs, and not the safety of residents and students. More than 10 different businesses were represented during the meeting all which spoke out against the idea. Local attorney Micheal Cardi said. “It’d be a 50 percent decrease in revenue if the bar closing time moves up by two hours.” Business owners that spoke to him also said that closing even an hour earlier would cause businesses to lose a quarter of total business revenue.

Of course, there are still plenty of people out there concerned with alcohol related incidents and believe a last call change would help the problem.

Morgantown is not the only college town that has opened up on the idea of making last call earlier. Columbia, South Carolina, the city home to the University of South Carolina has explored its options in creating a safer environment for college students. According to popular college review website Niche.com USC was given a A+ party scene grade, the same given to WVU.

Image result for five points columbia south carolina
“Five Points” in Columbia

In January of 2018, University of South Carolina officials agreed to the proposal of last call being at 2 a.m. in Columbia. The agreement to this proposal was specifically due to the issue of students drinking around the main bar scene. An official noted that in 2017, “260 USC students were taken to the hospital after over-consuming alcohol.” He also added that “of those who were, all reported that they had been drinking in one of the bars that was granted a previous exemption to stay open past 2 a.m.”

Another top party school, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio has looked into way to combat student drinking. However, their idea doesn’t entail changing last call. Bar officials around Oxford have proposed the idea of making drinks more expensive, so college students won’t be able to afford as many. “It makes a lot of sense. If the price of alcohol is higher, it’s going to discourage consumption.”

Image result for miami university ohio downtown
Downtown Oxford

Talks on changing the last call time in Morgantown haven’t resumed since they were shut down in late 2017. Due to recent alcohol bad behavior trends such as the Spruce Street Riots and Fraternities being shut down, I wouldn’t be surprised if the City Council meets again soon to discuss this topic.