After the riots at MSU Mankato last week, there's a great deal of apprehension over the homecomings on other upper Midwest campuses. Our university has decided that off-campus student behavior can be reflected in academic records.

St. Cloud State, however, is adding some new twists this year to deter partiers from getting out of hand, said [Nathan] Church, the university [student life] vice president, and St. Cloud Police Chief Dennis Ballantine.

St. Cloud State officials recently received clearance from the Minnesota attorney general's office to punish students academically for off-campus violations, Church said. Ads in the student newspaper next week will let people know that such acts as setting fire to cars won't look good on their permanent academic records.

Students "might be suspended or receive some kind of discipline," Church said. "That could certainly deter potential employers."

It turns out, according to the campus newspaper, that "Church also offered a warning that police can enforce the Student Code of Conduct on off-campus residencies. According to a campus neighborhood group there have been four suicide attempts and eight emergency room visits from students in the area in September. I would think Sept., December and May would be the worst anyway, and the article offers no comparative data. So I don't know how to evaluate that number.

A thought from Cold Spring Shops: Charge out-of-state tuition to those who violate the law. As long as it doesn't make them eligible for more student loans, it will reduce rioting by some, but it depends on the elasticity of demand for rioting.

UPDATE: The Elder Frater wants to know what the 1988 homecoming riots were like here? I was visiting another university in California that academic year, but according to most people I've spoken to, it wasn't anywhere like the scenes shown on local TV from Mankato. The neighborhood, as I've said before, has some residents that know how to deal with student neighbors, while others do not.