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A $1.8 million investigation into the deadly bonfire collapse a decade ago attached two critical descriptions to Texas A&M, accusing it of having tunnel vision and a cultural bias that allowed the disaster to unfold.
It was tough language to swallow at a university whose spirit is defined by the actions of a devoted student body and an administration that boasts about students getting the "other education" -- life outside the classroom -- through doing independent tasks on campus.
The most meaningful and substantial lessons used to be born from bonfire and all that came with the coveted tradition. From cutting the logs to building the 2-million-pound stack to lighting it with jet fuel, it was student-run and student-operated, and students made decisions on changes.
The six-tiered stack that grew from a pile of trash in 1909 had morphed into a several-month project involving thousands of students. What used to be small enough for a small group of students to build in the '60s soon was turned over to a competitive leadership hierarchy that oversaw other students. Many dedicated all their free time -- and much of their class time -- to its construction; others put in a shift or two or three just to say they had helped with the largest student-led project in the nation.
What many didn't know is that bonfire never was built the same way twice. Design changes were made over the years, but there was no construction manual that detailed those alterations. At least once, a student leader in the '80s did put safety measures and design schematics to paper, but somewhere along the way his efforts were discarded. Suggestions by a professor that once were practiced went ignored years later. When something was changed or thrown out, no reviews followed to measure the impact.
Ultimately, consultants with the investigation blamed structural failures on the collapse that killed 12 Aggies and injured 27, but they also sharply admonished generations of administrators for having "tunnel vision" and for allowing unqualified students to build a major construction project.
Ray Bowen, who served as A&M president for eight years starting in 1994 and now is on the faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, said he accepted the criticism.
"I think they meant that we were too comfortable with our student leadership programs, especially those that had been in place for many years. Tunnel vision translated into a belief that everything was OK because it had been OK for so long," Bowen said. "I think the lessons learned about the inherent risk of some student programs are deeply ingrained and probably will not be forgotten for a long time. Unfortunately, humans tend to forget and repeat their mistakes. Thus, it is important to be diligent and not let the bonfire lessons be forgotten."
A 261-page report by the Special Commission on the 1999 bonfire detailed missed opportunities on A&M's part to recognize warning signs of potential problems in the past. No blame was placed on an individual or the 1999 leadership, but the report did indicate that over the years, student leaders made design and construction decisions that adversely impacted the structural integrity.
Considerable evidence of irresponsible behavior, including alcohol use, hazing, horseplay and fighting was discovered despite the university's efforts to get a handle on it. While those issues didn't lead to A&M's worst disaster, it showcased the fact that the administration didn't have control over the project that brought 70,000 people to watch it burn in all its glory.
"This tunnel vision in decision making is due, in the commission's view, to a cultural bias in which legitimate courses of action outside past experience or contrary to the university's predisposition are often not considered," the report stated, adding that a more objective and conservative interpretation of the project should have been considered.
'Tunnel vision can be reversed'
Not long after the commission report was issued, Bowen -- who suspended the on-campus bonfire -- said he asked for a review of student programs by then-Vice President for Student Affairs Malon Southerland.
"His people did a full risk analysis of all their programs," Bowen said.
The administrators serving a decade ago have retired or moved on, making it difficult to have an official compare the campus mindset now to that of a decade ago.
Jason Cook, vice president for marketing and communications, said A&M had strengthened its risk management procedures in Student Affairs significantly since 1999.
"The leadership of any student activity undergoes risk management training," he said. "In addition, Student Affairs has a risk management coordination committee that represents all departments in the division and meets on a monthly basis or more frequently if any pressing concerns dictate. Regular training opportunities in regards to risk management are also offered on a regular basis."
He said both R. Bowen Loftin, the interim A&M president, and Lt. Gen. Joseph Weber, now vice president over student affairs, had read the bonfire report.
"When students inquire about bonfire returning to campus, Dr. Loftin encourages them to read the reports from both the Bonfire Commission and the large group led by Dr. Bryan Cole, so that they will have as much information as he has," Cook said. "Both reports have been provided to student leaders and other individuals online. Dr. Loftin read the bonfire report over the summer after being named interim president."
Cook said Student Affairs staff members are not required to read the Bonfire Commission report, given that there is not another student activity of its scale currently on campus, nor an activity that involves such significant construction.
Still, some students and former students want the tradition to return to campus. A review by Bowen in 2002 showed that it would be cost-prohibitive, costing $2.5 million to construct the first year and as much as $1.3 million every year after that. He also estimated that liability insurance would cost almost a half-million dollars each year.
John Breen's son, Christopher, was the only former student to die in the collapse. He had made the trip from Austin to College Station on the eve of Nov. 18, 1999, to celebrate the passing of a leadership torch on to a younger cadet.
"We've never had a problem with the university," said Breen, an engineering professor emeritus at the University of Texas whose other six children were Longhorns. "We had issues with the bureaucracy and that unwillingness to see things for the way they were, taking responsibility all the way around."
He said he's kept watch on events unfolding in Aggieland over the years and believes progress has been made, especially when Robert Gates, who was president for several years following Bowen, made strides in luring hundreds of new faculty members to the university.
"Tunnel vision can be reversed," Breen said.
Bowen said it's especially important to be aware of patterns of behavior changes over the generations.
"Frankly, the behavior norms of young people have changed greatly in the past 30 years," he said. "You now see abusive behavior in high school settings that was unheard of many years ago. The tolerance level of young people for this sort of thing seems to have increased in time rather than diminished. To a certain extent, this phenomenon moves on to colleges and you see patterns of hazing in sororities, fraternities and, in our case, the Corps that were not present many years ago."
Bowen said this means that student programs must be managed with full knowledge of the potential for dangerous behavior on the part of young people.
'Watch for it'
Billy Parker -- program director for Texas Task Force 1, an urban search-and-rescue team based in College Station -- said emergency crews are trained to watch for tunnel vision in the way they access a disaster.
"You see it with firefighters sometimes, and you see it on construction sites -- people develop habits, and if you go a long time with bad habits, things happen. Murphy's Law catches up with you," Parker said. "It's human nature sometimes to have that tunnel vision, so you always have to be watching for it."
He recalls 22 members of his crew arriving on the A&M campus a decade ago after being paged. It was the task force's third deployment; it's made 70 since, including a trip to rescue residents who stayed behind in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina's deadly wrath in 2005.
"This response stands out more vividly than any other because it was in my hometown," he said, adding that his daughter was in high school and wanted one day to attend A&M. "Several years later, and this could have been my daughter. It stayed with a lot of us."
The task force had never been trained to respond to a pile of twisted logs weighing more than several jumbo jets, so members opened up all options and soon someone came up with the idea of having a trained logger come to the scene to help pluck the logs from the stack and remove those who were trapped.
"We listened to someone outside our group offering advice and took it, and it saved lives," Parker said.
Bowen said that he sees now that there were some indications that might have told him something was wrong with the stack.
"I have felt responsible for being so preoccupied with other things that I did not see something that would have told me the thing was about to collapse," Bowen said, adding that the evolving vertical configuration was one indicator. "In the years before the bonfire collapse, I frequently walked by the construction site on my nightly walk. The year of the collapse, I did not walk as much, and when I did, I rarely walked by the stack.
"I cannot help but wonder if I would have seen something if I had been more involved. Unfortunately, that is something I will never know," Bowen said. "I also speculate I am not the only person that has this kind of feeling."
