The strategy to prevent non-UW-Madison students from rioting on Halloween is a coordinated effort to standardize University-related penalties, according to UW System administrators.
'Our plan is to remain focused primarily on safety for all of our attendees down on State Street,' said Lori Berquam, interim dean of students at UW-Madison.
Specific concerns come from the high rate of non-UW-Madison student criminal offenses, which make up a clear majority of the arrests and citations.
'Eighty-five percent of the offenses are by non-UW-Madison students,' Berquam said.
Measures being taken to limit the amount of participants at this year's Halloween celebration include barring non-residents from University Housing. This measure could reduce the number of people on State Street during Halloween by 3,000, Berquam said.
Berquam provided examples of unacceptable behavior from visitors over the past two years.
'The person last year who started the fire was a UW-Platteville volunteer firefighter, and the people who started throwing the bricks into the University Inn the year before were two UW-Stevens Point students,' Berquam said.
Partnerships with many other institutions have increased this year, Berquam said. Other colleges involved in the information campaign include schools from Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, Kentucky and Alabama, among others.
A running dialogue between UW-Madison and UW-Platteville administration has yielded much cooperation and understanding.
'We shared a lot of information with our students about [UW-Madison's] changed policy,' said Michael Viney, UW-Platteville assistant chancellor of student affairs. 'Madison did let us know that they will send a list of students who got arrested.'
Jerry Reinhart, the associate vice provost for student affairs at the University of Minnesota, plans to initiate several endeavors to get the word out about civil behavior at Madison's Halloween celebration.
'We will probably put an ad in the paper letting students know that they are acting as ambassador to the school,' Reinhart said.
Last year, the University of Minnesota got in touch with those students who were arrested or cited in Madison.
'We got a list of students that got arrested and I sent them a letter of disappointment, saying if the same thing happened here it would go on their permanent record,' Reinhart said.
UW-Whitewater Assistant Dean of Students Mary-Beth Mackin pointed to system-wide regulations that apply universally, and not merely to Halloween.
'There is one code of conduct throughout the UW System schools,' Mackin said. 'We try to get the same message out year-round and we encourage good behavior year-round, especially on other campuses.'
Long-term consequences will follow if any UW System students receive citations or arrests, Mackin said. Among administrators, a unanimous stance on student safety during this upcoming weekend is emblematic.
Berquam challenges the UW-Madison population to use this year's celebration to regain control of Madison and put it back in the hands of local students.
'We are very close to a major incident,' Berquam said. 'Our students need to take back Halloween.'
