The Veishea Advisory Committee has forwarded its report to President Martin C. Jischke, who will decide on the report in the fall.

Of course, Iowa State should not get rid of the Veishea celebration. Though the stabbing death of 19-year-old Uri Sellers was a tragedy, Veishea should continue as a testament of the strength and resiliency of ISU students to run one of the largest student-run celebrations in the country.

The celebration offers big leadership opportunities and a chance to learn civic-planning skills, which are learned so easily in the lab environment of a classroom.

Two people were murdered at last year’s Iowa State Fair, and nobody considered ending the fair. Getting rid of Veishea is like running from a problem. Changing Veishea is the solution to the problem of violence at such a large celebration.

Jischke has many things to consider. Among them is following in the footsteps of the University of Iowa and banning alcohol at fraternities. Others include tighter event planning, focusing on showcasing ISU instead of Welch Avenue, the large numbers of out-of- towners, alcohol education and the heavy use of alcohol during the Veishea weekend.

The report from the committee has been criticized for not looking closely at drinking at fraternities. Uri Sellers died on the lawn of the fraternity where he had been drinking. (Yes, the coroner’s report found he had been drinking.) They should’ve at least suggested Jischke’s office look into minors drinking at frat parties.

Yet, despite this, the report stated the Iowa State Daily and The Daily Tribune should not carry advertisements for alcohol during Veishea.

I’ll bet that if every single publication in Ames did not carry any advertisements for alcohol ever at any time in their history, Sellers would have still been stabbed on April 20. The riots of 1988 and 1992 would also have occurred.

Banning alcohol advertisements won’t fix the problem. It would only be a public-relations move for the newspapers.

It is up to the administration, the Veishea Committee, ISU fraternities and the students themselves to change the problems with Veishea.

An extra emphasis should be made on partying responsibly. No matter how hard the civic, university and student leaders try to prevent problems, one individual can ruin it all.

The role of the Daily and the Tribune is to provide a forum for discussion on issues surrounding the Veishea celebration. The newspaper is where people get their news and look for opinions and comments from local figures and the journalists themselves (this column is an example), but it is not the role of a newspaper to try to get out and fix the problem.

The most the men and women of the Daily should do to fix the problem is what every other student needs to do: make sure they and their friends — including people from out of town — party responsibly during Veishea weekend.

The Daily did not make much money from alcohol ads during Veishea, but it still is wrong for the Daily to make such a move. We ran 21 alcohol-related ads during Veishea week, bringing in only $4,600. Of those 21 ads, 13 were bar ads and eight were from grocery stores, restaurants and drug stores.

Freedom of the Press ultimately lies with the publisher of a newspaper. In this case, the Iowa State Daily Publication Board has the ultimate decision of whether it wants to follow the recommendation of the Veishea Advisory Committee. This fall, the Board once again will consider the issue of alcohol advertising during Veishea. I believe it is in the best interest of the Daily to continue running ads for alcohol during Veishea week.

Not only do I not like how the Veishea Advisory Committee apparently thought banning advertising would work better than banning alcohol at fraternities, I also do not like the idea of a government body telling a publication what it should publish. This goes against the ideal of a free press and is something most government bodies in the United States avoid even asking.

Jischke should do what the Veishea Advisory Committee failed to do: look at the problem of underage drinking at fraternity parties. And if the committee wants to ban alcohol advertising, I say let the advertisers take the proactive role.

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Tim Frerking is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Pomeroy. He is the summer editor in chief of the Daily.