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STUDENT LEADERS at Mary Washington College have a lot on their minds.
Last month, Jessica L. Rigel was very worried about collateral damage.
Not collateral damage from cruise missiles in Iraq.
No. Collateral damage from a bluegrass concert at MWC.
You see, if the Nickel Creek show was opened to the public, there could have been all kinds of havoc.
You know those gangsta bluegrass fans. They're trouble.
At least, that's what I'm told.
In a column published two weeks ago, I criticized the college for not having a blanket policy of opening shows to the public if tickets were left after they had been first offered to students.
Over the years, MWC has closed a number of shows by nationally known groups like Nickel Creek to the public. Other big shows have not been not formally closed, but were not publicized off-campus, creating the same effect.
The vast majority of colleges around the country have a policy of making tickets available to the public if concerts are not sold out to students by a set date.
But not MWC.
Mary Washington's rule of thumb seems to be that if there's a lot of interest in a band, shows generally shouldn't be open to the public. Because, you see, if there's interest, people might actually come.
Rigel, a member of Giant, the student entertainment committee at MWC, e-mailed me to explain that safety is the reason.
"I am not implying in any way that the people of Fredericksburg would harm anyone on campus, but if tickets were to sell out at the door and if we were forced to turn people away then what you would have is a lot of 'townies' with nothing to do wandering around on a college campus," Rigel wrote. "In any town, in any city, in any suburb, no matter how safe, this is not the wisest of decisions.
"If we had the police staff to escort such a number of citizens off campus, then I'm sure we would do so; however, as that is not the case, we decided to close the concert to the public. This is in no way a commentary on how the college regards the city of Fredericksburg, nor is it some elitist way to shut you out of our activities."
Uh huh. So let's review. If there was a big enough MWC police force--if, say, an officer could be assigned to every "townie," then it would be safe to have the public on this public school campus.
Not that "townies" would harm anyone. Not to imply that "townies" are some kind of threat. No, no, a thousand times no.
But maybe if the college police were mounted on horseback and had really big nightsticks, that would make it easier to contain roaming "townies" foaming at the mouth because a show is sold out.
I checked with Rob Brown, co-chair of Giant, to see if he agreed that more police were required to control townspeople who come on campus.
"Jessica misspoke when she said that police would have to escort people off campus," he responded in an e-mail.
But he also believed that opening the show to the public would just be a recipe for trouble.
Anyway, he said, the Great Hall, where the show took place last Sunday, holds only 600 people, which made it silly to offer to sell remaining tickets to taxpayers here who make it possible for him to go to school at MWC.
He wrote sarcastically: "So yes, we will make all the extra tickets available for sale at the door. Unfortunately, there will be none left. So what is the point?"
Well, apparently there was a point, because there were tickets available for the public.
And on the day of the show, in spite of advance warning that the public would not be offered tickets, the show failed to sell out to students and the school did put tickets on sale to the public.
The only problem was that most bluegrass fans in the area didn't think they could go the show because the school had formally announced there would be no tickets offered to the public.
Even with ticket sales being opened to the public, and even in a small room, the concert didn't sell out until almost showtime.
Meanwhile, people from further off campus, like University of Richmond faculty member Barry Lawson, made advance plans to attend the show because they were escorted in by MWC faculty.
See, there were enough tickets. Just not enough for you. It's who you know, you know.
Remember that this is a public school.
And remember that there are concerts sold out all over America every single night without a whole lot of rioting and pillaging.
Mary Washington does the community a great service by bringing in speakers like Ken Burns and by hosting many high-brow cultural events. And it always opens those events to the public and always does an excellent job of publicizing them.
But then, the college is perfectly comfortable with the graying, middle- and upper-middle-class outsiders those events attract.
MWC seems to become uncomfortable when big-name rock and hip-hop concerts promise to bring in young, diverse crowds from outside the campus.
It may seem odd to say that a college worries about young, diverse crowds on campus. That is, until you consider the fact that The Princeton Review rated MWC the "Most Homogenous" campus in America for 2003. The publication meant that Mary Washington is so lacking in diversity that its student body looks like it was stamped out with a cookie cutter.
Maybe that's why "townies" seem so foreboding.
MICHAEL ZITZ is a staff writer for the Life section. You can write to him c/o The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; send e-mail to mikez@freelancestar.com; or call 374-5408.
