The birds are chirping, the trees are budding — spring is in the air.

It must be time for a riot.

In what’s becoming an annual event, hundreds of easily excitable students “gathered” for a little springtime party Thursday night out at Towers. As you certainly know by now, the celebration grew and spread, with a mob of as many as 1,500 people roaming campus.

The morning after the incident, administrators played down the gathering.

“This was a group of students getting together, enjoying a spring evening,” said Thomas Hill, vice president for student affairs, about the crowd that burned their clothes in front of the Campanile.

Law enforcement officers and university administrators estimated the number of students at around 300, or at least no more than 500, and they objected to the Daily’s use of the word “riot” in the headline of Friday’s newspaper, saying the gathering was merely a boisterous crowd.

However, according to eyewitnesses throughout the evening — including me — there were definitely over 1,000 students involved.

And although it may not have been a riot in the L.A.-riots sense, it definitely involved “disorderly behavior” and “disturbance of the public peace,” which, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, constitutes a riot.

No, the riot didn’t involve looting or major vandalism. And no, the riot wasn’t some organized protest of dry Veishea, although that theme did come up in the chants of the students.

But the night of rioting did have significance, despite what administrators said.

Immediately after picking up other students at all three residence associations, the rioters traveled to the lawn of ISU President Martin Jischke.

This, according to administrators, didn’t really mean anything. It was simply a stop on the way for a bunch of ambling kids.

“It’s like Mardi Gras,” Hill said. “And that was a designated stop on the parade route.”

Sure. Just like Serbia is a stop on the way for NATO fighter planes.

Although it wasn’t planned, the mob went to Jischke’s lawn for a reason. Maybe it wasn’t to make any actual demands or to protest anything in particular, but there was something spurring that crowd other than the Knoll being on the way to frat row.

If it wasn’t an alcohol-free Veishea motivating the mob, what was it? One student in the throng may have provided the answer.

“I don’t think the administration understands that sometimes students just need a little attention,” said Peter Gregory, a sophomore in liberal arts and sciences.

Now maybe that statement doesn’t speak for all of the students out there Thursday night. But maybe it says a lot about the atmosphere at this university.

Besides the Knoll, the other definitive stop on the mass’s meandering path was Jack Trice Stadium, where about 20 students broke in — and were then locked in.

Why did the crowd choose the stadium? Maybe because that’s another site where administrators frequently don’t pay attention to students and instead tell them what they can’t do.

Whenever students try to storm the stadium field to take down the goalposts, a commonly accepted form of jubilation at other colleges across the country, they are met by — guess who? — administrators and law enforcement officials, who communicate to them that the money it takes to keep the stadium grass green is more important than the school spirit facilitated by taking down the goalposts.

But don’t we, as students, technically own that field? Shouldn’t we have some sort of right to be on it?

I wondered what would happen if the distinguished alumni of this school would get out of their recliners in the skyboxes and their seats at the 50-yard line and rush the field.

Do you suppose they would be met by tear gas and handcuffs and the disapproving look of Dr. Jischke?

I doubt it.

Maybe ISU is no different than any other school. But the attitude here, expressed in things administrators say and ways administrators act, is that students are not an important part of this university until they graduate and put money back into it.

And maybe students pick up on that attitude.

Now that’s probably not why more than 1,000 students rioted on campus Thursday night. They probably were just doing it because it was a beautiful spring evening and they didn’t have anything else to do.

But if the university administrators really want to prevent riots like this one, and prevent students from reflecting poorly on the university, they should take a long, hard look at what — or who — the students were really protesting.

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Sara Ziegler is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Sioux Falls, S.D. She had nothing to do with burning underwear — really.