Homecoming weekend for Slippery Rock University was held Oct. 18 through the 20.
The usual festivities took place such as the parade, the homecoming football game, and a homecoming dance.
For many universities, homecoming is also an unofficial drinking holiday where college students traditionally become inebriated through activities such as tailgating and partying.
To try to compensate for any crimes related to the increase in drinking over that weekend, the Pennsylvania State Police came to Slippery Rock to help out local law enforcement officers.
However, these policemen chose a very traditional variety of transportation – horses.
We imagine they chose these horse as transportation because they are easily taken across campus grounds, unlike a vehicle.
Now, it is common knowledge that all mammals must defecate as a common part of their exsitence. Food eventually has to go somewhere.
We, as students, just wish that wasn’t all over our campus.
It shouldn’t be the responsibility of SRU’s maintenence crew to clean up the horse feces either.
And students shouldn’t have worry about trapsing through horse manure as they make their way across campus, intoxicated or not.
Our stance is not that the police presence on campus was unnecessary or undesirable, but rather they should have dealt with horse defecation in a more creative way.
In fact, there is a company out of Idaho called Bun-Bag, which specifically sells horse manure catchers and diapers for horses of all sizes and varieties.
But the horse feces wasn’t only issue over homecoming weekend.
Other rumors were circulating among students about increased police enforcement on campus.
Rumors were circulating among students that the police were going to search every room in the residence halls for alcohol, and that police were going to stand outside residence halls both Friday and Saturday nights after 11:30 p.m. to Breathalyzer test every student entering the residence halls.
While these rumors were obviously untrue, the increased police enforcement on campus is definitely not going unnoticed by students.
We would like to pose the question as to whether this has contributed to the decrease in crime on campus.
See this week’s In The Quad for student reactions on the issue.
