This is the third of a five-part series detailing Onward State’s stance on State Patty’s Day.

Last State Patty’s Day, 103 patients were treated at Mount Nittany Medical Center for alcohol-related emergencies; of those patients, 67% were not Penn State students. Most, in fact, were visitors from other universities.  Similarly, last State Patty’s Day, 289 people were arrested; of those arrested, 55% were enrolled at Dear Old State.  What these figures suggest is that students from other schools want to come visit Happy Valley for State Patty’s Day as an excuse to act like total assholes–to get far too drunk and to commit crimes in the process.

Penn State, as we all know, has a reputation as a party school.  That said, Penn State students are generally pretty civilized.  We love our school and we express a tremendous sense of Penn State Pride.  Your friends from high school, however, probably do not have the same vested interest in maintaining civility, decorum, and rule of law in Beaver Canyon.  Those who heard tales from their older brother that State Patty’s Day is “wild” or “not to be missed” take it as a signal that Happy Valley is a place where, as the expression goes, the insane are running the asylum for one weekend in February.  Visitors from other schools get overly excited to partake in party scene Penn State, and consequently act with reckless abandon.

As the above graph illustrates, State Patty’s Day has become more destructive with each successive iteration, because the legend continues to grow farther and farther beyond State College.  As the stories of State Patty’s become crazier and crazier, its mythology will reach yet more rapscallions and undesirables, yielding even more rowdy and lawless out-of-towners for our police and paramedics to clean up.

It’s irresponsible to indulge your friends’ fantasy of the “anything goes” ideal of college that was sold to them by Animal House.  Whatever the circumstances were that landed your friend Brian at a lame little liberal arts school, they were not the fault of this community and, consequently, we should not be forced to endure the burden of his misconduct.  Penn State is not Thunderdome.  Penn State is not Hamsterdam.  Although we are generally a very welcoming community, we do not want to greet carloads of visitors hellbent on pissing in our streets and clogging our hospital beds or our jail cells.

Please do not invite your friends to Penn State for State Patty’s Day.  Tell them your roommate already invited a bunch so there’s no room.  Tell them you have an exam.  We don’t care what you tell them so long as it is something along the lines of “Sorry bro, no can do.”

But for god’s sake, if they have to come, make sure they don’t treat State College as their own personal playground, toilet, and nursery.

If they do, it’s not them who has to live with the consequences. It’s on you.

Figures for this editoral were taken from this State Patty’s Day After Action Report.

You can see the previous posts from our series below:

Part 1: State Patty’s Day Dangerous To Image After Scandal

Part 2: State Patty’s Day: Act Like You’ve Partied Before