I participated in “Public Safety in a College Town,” hosted by high school students from State College. After attending the deliberation on public safety, I learned more about deliberation as a form of discussing controversy and safety in State College more generally.
I appreciated that the moderators framed the issue not as a clash between opposing interest groups, but as a problem that all sides needed to address. One limitation of the format was that everyone had to agree that public safety is a problem in order to search for common solutions, which limits its applications. For an issue like income inequality, on which the left and right disagree on whether it poses a threat to society, I would envision a debate rather than a deliberation because the common ground doesn’t exist. I noticed the moderators were careful to ask questions centered around “how” to solve the problem rather than if any one way of thinking was “right.” In politics and society, policies become a question of one extreme or another and people feel compelled to define their ideas relative to those extremes.
Given that I just moved to State College three months ago, I entered the discussion feeling like I didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation. As I listened to the other participants, I could relate to the proposed solutions and other people’s perspectives because of my own experiences. The main point of discussion was over whether change should come from above or from gradual shifts in culture.
In my short time at Penn State, I’ve noticed that the university’s no drugs or alcohol on campus policy changes nothing in campus party culture. If they have any effect, the posters threatening harsh penalties for substance use only make students resentful. After hearing about some encounters with disorderly students, I can understand why people who have had these negative experiences could advocate for a law and order approach. Without any way to voice concerns to students, penalties can seem like the only way to keep them in check. While State College residents were often on the receiving end of vandalism or theft, enforcement of public safety disproportionately affects students. The issue affects State College residents and Penn State students in different ways, but both groups agreed to a greater degree than I expected.
Everyone came to the conclusion that university crackdowns on Greek life, drinking and parties did little to improve the safety of either students or townies. My deliberation group and every group in the room favored solution two, which included more community builders and educational events for students to connect with townies. The way the solutions were presented, they seemed clean-cut and easy to implement, which is not the fault of the moderators. When discussing issues in the abstract, people often idealize solutions and skip over the obstacles to putting them in place.
One obvious shortcoming was that the people engaging in these events would not necessarily represent the whole of State College or Penn State. In my group, all of the students were freshmen who lived on campus. It just so happened that they were also there for extra credit for their English classes. I believe the deliberation would have been improved by the participation of upperclassmen, off-campus students and students involved in Greek life. It’s one thing to complain about noise or partying from fraternity houses, but members of Greek organizations are actually in a position to take action on the complaints. State College residents who dislike Penn State students would likely not want to attend events with them, making me question how effective grassroots community building really would be.
Overall, I enjoyed the opportunity to observe and participate in the deliberation, and I’ll keep my observations in mind when I prepare for a deliberation in this class.