Party Central? Some call town tame compared to reputation earned in decades past

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While Central Michigan University is still considered a party school by students, graduates feel the reputation seems to be one the school no longer lives up to.

“CMU was definitely a party school when I attended with a strong reputation,” said Julie Carr, an alumna who graduated in 1989. ”In some respects I think the reputation was an attractive component to attending.  I often remember hearing other students brag that they were attending a party school.”

Stephen Holder, a former English professor who studied and taught at CMU starting in 1958, said Central’s hardest partying is long over. Holder retired from teaching in 2010 but still lives in the area.

“Wild as things now may seem, they are pretty tame compared to those earlier days,” Holder said.

Holder said student partying in Mount Pleasant peaked in the 70s, when “the changes accelerated, culminating in the violent end of the world parties…where cars were overturned and furniture burned in the streets. Drugs were easy to find.  The police response was met by more violence and wild partying.”

Holder said the violence and partying culminated in the creation of an annual “end of the world” party each May,  an event where a large section of housing off campus was turned into what amounted to an intoxicated riot. The “end of the world” parties were wild enough to merit mention in The Los Angeles Times in 1985 and The New York Times in 1986.

The L.A. Times described scenes of widespread violence: “Police in riot gear swept through a crowd of nearly 1,000 people early Friday and made about 50 arrests when an annual graduation celebration at Central Michigan University erupted into a rock- and bottle-throwing melee.”

However, the mid-eighties did not see an end to the violence. As reported by The Orlando Sentinel in 1991, another large riot broke out in Mount Pleasant after CMU’s football team beat Western: “Students celebrating a Central Michigan University football victory went on a rampage, overturning cars, setting fires and attacking bystanders. Authorities said Sunday that 35 people were arrested on charges ranging from inciting a riot to felonious assault on an officer.”

In contrast to the wild party scene of past decades, Holder said today’s students are more focused.

“I think they are just as smart, just as hardworking in general as we ever were,” Holder said. “There will always be some who come for the party. However, they generally wash out early. In all likelihood, today’s students are much more mature than those of the earlier decades.”

Bill Yeagley, chief of the CMU Police, is not sure of Central’s reputation outside the area, but he is sure things are very different now than they were in the ’80s.

“I think that there have been a lot of lessons learned from the ’80s,” Yeagley said. “Today we enjoy some of the fruit of the work that was done back then.”

During the riots in the ’80s, Yeagley worked for Mount Pleasant Police, and he said student parties today do not resemble those at all.

“I anticipate there being issues but nothing like cars being burned and civil disobedience,” he said.

Yeagley said the Central-Western riot in 1991 was the last time riot police were used to break up a party in Mount Pleasant.

Despite the decrease in partying, some students still feel Central has a wild reputation, especially among employers who graduated from different schools.

Dan Clark, a 2011 graduate from Jackson, ran into problems with Central’s reputation when looking for jobs in finance.

“In the interviewing process, especially for more professional market analysis companies, I had to combat Central’s reputation,” he said.

Clark said when he told interviewers he attended Central, he often was met with nervous laughter, and he occasionally disparaged the school just to break the ice.

“At times I had to give in and bash my school,” he said.

Clark said he feels the reputation no longer fits the day-to-day activities at the school.

“Central’s reputation as a party school was part of the reason I came to CMU, but I think it’s settled down quite a bit,” he said.

“(Central) lived up to my expectations until sophomore year, but then I got a bit bored with the parties,” Clark said. “Once I got sick of it, I just stopped seeking that scene. It goes without saying that students here still party, but in the four years I was here fraternity life and Main Street died down.”

Donna Adams, an alumna who attended CMU between 1979 and 1984, said partying has definitely decreased since she attended.

“I don’t think the amount of drugs are as prolific as they were in the early ’80s, but booze is booze and it’ll always make kids wild,” Adams said. ”I do, however, think drug and alcohol education has helped young people be a little more responsible. We never had a concern with designated drivers or MIPs.”

Though there are no longer cars being flipped over or partying on the scale of the ’70s and ’80s, students at CMU still party.

Yeagley said CMU administration, students, police and local business owners all made efforts to reduce the liklihood of parties getting out of control.

“The students have a different attitude toward partying now than they did then,” he said.

To help direct current students to local parties, a student who wished to remain anonymous created a special Twitter account, @partyatCMU.

“I’m not saying CMU is more of a party school than another, this Twitter feed is just meant to show what is happening around campus,” the student said.

A recent post on the account, “Yes, I go to ‘school’ at Central Michigan #sorryforpartying,” plays up the school’s reputation as a party school, however none of the posts make mention of riot police.