Opinion: Keep Mirror Lake jump for students

Francis Pellicciaro
Tue, 08 Dec 2015 03:40:45 +0000
Opinion, mirror lake, mirror lake jump, Tradition, undergraduate student government, usg

Students take part in the annual Mirror Lake Jump on Nov. 22. Credit: Robert Scarpinito | Copy Chief

You take a deep breath and feel the bare skin on your chest and shoulders expand against the cold November air as the skin on your arms tightens and the goosebumps rise.

It is midnight and you are standing in a crowd of thousands of college students. There are people yelling, drunkenly singing school songs and carrying school banners.

An old friend slaps you on the shoulder and together you jog forward to the edge of the water and jump in.

This isn’t the first Mirror Lake jump, and it won’t be the last, but for you, this night is a memory in the making.

In the wake of the tragedy that struck at this year’s Mirror Lake jump, it is likely that there will be a crackdown on the jump as university leadership looks to end the tradition.

The death of Austin Singletary was more than tragic — it was the avoidable death of a young person, and all the condolences of the OSU community should be given to his family and friends.

But his death does not make the entire student body accountable, and university officials are wrong when they try to make it a reason to end the Mirror Lake jump.

College is a time meant for perfecting your ability to make decisions on your own and becoming comfortable with taking responsibility for yourself.

Jumping into cold water on a November night should be seen by any rational person as a risk, and Singletary is a reminder that there are sometimes consequences of taking such a risk.

To ban good-natured, risk-taking behavior is to ban the spirit of going to college and the spirit of that grand crescendo of the end of one’s youth.

University leaders might have received complaints from parents who believe that not enough is done to keep their children safe. Thus, OSU leaders might have an impetus to take those parents’ voices a step further and make OSU a nanny to its students.

This is contradictory to the reasons why students go away to college and an insult to any OSU student who is comfortable taking care of his or herself.

Undergraduate Student Government’s support of ending the jump shows that the body is out of touch with the demands of the student population.

The student body is the life of the yearly jump, as OSU students continue the tradition every year.

Are there any signs that love for the jump has gone away since 2013 when there was a fence put up around Mirror Lake and students took down the fence in order to make an early jump?

The USG resolution for ending the jump, Resolution 48-R-21: A Resolution to Advocate for Student Safety by Ending the Mirror Lake Jump, says, “(USG) will make every effort to support a new tradition created by the students that celebrates our university while respecting the safety of its students.”

This does not make any sense. Traditions are not delegated. Traditions begin naturally and organically out of the feelings of a community.

People will still want the Mirror Lake jump to continue, whether university leadership believes it is a good idea and whether USG is capable of stepping up to the plate for the student body.