What started out as an exciting day for FSU students to meet their favorite childhood scientist quickly turned into a day of travesty. Unbeknownst to most students, the Student Government Association, which organized for Bill Nye the Science Guy to visit our beloved school as a part of their Golden Tribe Lecture Series, had declared that there was to be no official line until 5p.m. This, of course, was not known unless students had shown up early and were told such by the FSU PD.
However, one student decided to work with FSU PD to form an unofficial line. This became known as the circle. It was organized so those who had been waiting since the early afternoon would be the first in the line and no one would be cheated out of a ticket if they had gotten there early enough to wait.
This sole student, who wishes to remain anonymous, put a lot of dedication into making sure that this would be a peaceful and organized line so as not to cause any controversy, and worked tirelessly to ensure that everyone was made aware of the line situation. This peaceful attempt worked up until around 5:00 p.m. That is when things became disastrous.
(photo by Carolyn Raffel)
Despite FSU PD saying no one could line up in front of the Ruby Diamond building, they allowed students to form along the grass away from the building. No sidewalks, staircases, or other safety hazards were compromised. And it was under FSU PD’s discretion that the formation of the circle was made.
Unfortunately, all the hard worked attempts to make the non-line as fair and peaceful as possible, a poorly made announcement quickly unraveled wide-spread panic. The announcers from the Golden Tribe Lecture Series directly caused a stampede by suddenly declaring that there “is no line.” The confusion from the abrupt announcement caused absolute panic as students rushed to the doors in an attempt to receive their tickets.
There were no declared injuries sustained from the stampede, but a lot of students were angry at the turn of events. Those who were in the front of the non-line were in total confusion in the mass chaos, and most of those students who had been waiting since noon were forced to the end of the line.
The injustice of the event, the confusion, the panic, and the loss of seats to see someone that many students call their childhood idol caused many to grieve at the turn of events. Some students took it upon themselves to visit the FSU SGA office to voice their outrage and concern over the way the situation was handled.
SGA has announced that they would like to receive any and all information concerning the event so as to make sure nothing similar should happen at further events. Unfortunately, this cannot fill the overwhelming sadness students feel that were unable to see Bill Nye. However, with the help of the student body, the organizers will hopefully see the err in their recent ways and have more successful, chaos-free events in the future.