Seek the whole truth
Holly Divella, junior elementary education major, offers another reason why the university should move on from the past. She says all of the students are being honored as if they did nothing wrong, when actually, some of them provoked guardsmen during the May 4 rally.
"I have seen videotape from the riot that day, and students were taunting the guards," Divella says.
"I don't think that means that the students deserved to be shot at, but for the past 30 years we have been making these students into saints and condemning everyone else. The whole truth isn't there. I don't think we should be honoring and remembering something, especially for 30 years, when the complete story isn't being told."
While evidence shows that Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller were involved in the May 4 rally, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder were passersby.
Campus violence erupted across the nation in 1970 because of the Vietnam War. Tiene attended the University of Michigan, where he was active in anti-war protests. Rock throwing was common, but he never saw a threat from police forces.
"These incidents were happening at campuses everywhere, but police on other campuses did not overreact and fire shots like they did at Kent State," Tiene says. "That's the embarrassment of the incident, and that's why people want to forget it. Conservatives want to show that because stones were thrown, that is why this incident happened."
Even the parking lot memorial shows that the students weren't necessarily endangering the guard, Tiene says.
"The memorial shows where the students fell, and they were so far away from the guardsmen," he says. "How could they be threatening the Guard from there?"
Time away from classes, not time to remember
Kent State student Tiffany Petrosky notices too many students using May 4 as a popular day off from classes - not an opportunity to inquire, learn, and reflect.
Every day, countless people walk through the May 4 Memorial, which reminds us to "Inquire, Learn, and Reflect"
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"No one cares anymore, and it is kind of making a joke out of the situation to keep hearing about it," says Petrosky, a junior middle-childhood education major. "Students aren't paying their respects in the proper manner. It is having a reverse effect. Instead of bringing awareness, people are saying, 'We get the day off of school because those kids got shot.'
"I don't think that constantly hearing about May 4 raises anyone's awareness," she says. "We already know all about it."
Tiene disagrees. He thinks that the students today are not learning enough about May 4.
"I see what happened as an exercise of democratic rights," Tiene says. "One of the reasons that this event has not been forgotten and won't be forgotten, especially in history books, is because it represents an exercise of free speech and the right to assemble. These are the heart of what democracy is about."
"The university should educate people about the history of that era, but it has been neglected because of the defensiveness of the event," Tiene says. "The mission of the university should be to get the facts out. Some people who have carried the banner, like Jerry Lewis, are retiring. They aren't going to be involved in commemorating."
Closer to home
There are other issues students should focus their attention to, Szkatulski says.
"We have all of these tragedies now, like the Oklahoma City bombings, Kosovo, and the school shootings," Szkatulski says, "and those are a lot closer than the Kent shootings. Why concentrate on the past?"
And it's hard to predict whether or not the next generation will remember the wave of school shootings.
"Thirty years from now, our kids are not going to still be mourning the kids at Columbine High School because it was before their time," says Robert Marek, a junior accounting major. "May 4 was before our time."
Kent State could benefit from an image change, says Stephanie Self, fourth-year communications major.
"I think that it is time to find something else to remember Kent by, like our programs," she says. "It's a shame the kids got killed, and it's nice that we remember it, but it's time to move on and get over it."
Future of May 4?
Tiene wants Kent State to be known for both.
"All universities want to have a positive image, and that's great," he says. "Why can't they work together? This could be a school known for the shootings and for being a fine institution.
"Fifty years from now, when no one is around and the sensitivity toward the issue is gone, you wonder if Kent can accept it. This is the reason Kent State is known around the world."
 
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