CONTRIBUTED BY ANGELA GOTZ

Dear University Students,

I appreciate the Universities and the opportunities they bring Winona’s residents. I am a WSU alumna, and my husband attended WSU for two years. Our four year old does not appreciate “college kids” as he calls you. He says those two words out of annoyance, sometimes anger, and almost always with an exasperated sigh. We frequently have to explain, “not all college kids are bad, some just do bad things when they are drunk.” Unfortunately he has not seen enough positive college student role models to balance out the negative ones.

There are no college rental homes in our immediate area, but there many close enough to get a lot of traffic (by foot and by car) on bar/party nights. These are the nights I dread most. Our first year here eight pickets were broken off our fence, our car was damaged, numerous broken bottles on our sidewalk and lawn, and many beer cans. I witnessed a picket being broken off of this year and when I yelled “HEY!” the boy responsible ran away, laughing with a friend.

Try to imagine how you would feel as a four year old living with this. There have been times our son has been afraid to play in the yard, or bike on the sidewalk because he’s worried he’ll get hurt by glass or step in vomit. He has woken up with nightmares from the noise outside his window, even though we have newer windows and a white noise machine. Some nights he can’t sleep at all. He has been worried for our dog, afraid she would hurt her paws on broken glass, or run away because of missing pickets. He’s been mad because his parents can’t play sometimes because we have to paint new pickets, and install new latches. He has been confused about why we had to cancel plans when we had to get our car fixed after an underage drunk WSU student ran into our parked car in our driveway – and sleepy because we were all woken up at 3am by the police officer pounding on our door to inform us. Our son is sad we can’t decorate for holidays, because decorations will just be stolen, as so many have in our neighborhood.

I have defended the Universities’ presence and the positive impact the students have made. I want to make sure you are all aware of the negative impact that has been made too. My son is learning that “college kids” are bad people, that they are destructive, disrespectful, and self-centered. He is learning these things because of the actions of some of you, not because of what we are teaching him. He doesn’t believe us when we tell him the good things college kids do because all he can see is the bad. Please be aware of the lessons you are teaching children by your actions. There are families living all around you. Please help us teach our children “college kids” are good people.