Universities try to contain this energy, to direct it toward learning and growth. Sometimes the controls on student behavior snap, and something explodes. Scott Krueger's death was an explosion, as violent an accident as the crash that killed Michelle Micheletti. And just as Micheletti might have been saved by a traffic light or an overpass walkway, Krueger might have lived if some aspects of college culture, particularly fraternity culture, had been different. But the conditions that killed Krueger were shaped by the complicated reactions of a campus' social life, something far more complex than a busy street.
Automobiles have drivers.
The police launched a homicide investigation. As a grand jury was convened, there was speculation that indictments might finger not only Krueger's fraternity brothers but MIT itself. Those charges had merit. Indeed, there were times when I was ready to point a finger at the university myself. Krueger had died at a reckless, dangerous event that had occurred while MIT wasn't watching but should have been.