The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate on Sunday passed a resolution concerning changes to this year's Spring Fling that senators hope will be considered by the steering committee as it reviews the Alcohol Task Force's recommendations.
The Alcohol Task Force, chartered last May by Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman, has concluded its discussions and submitted a report with Spring Fling recommendations to the steering committee, which sets policies on matters relating to alcohol.
While task force members declined to comment on the specifics of the report, a number of sources, including the Senate's meeting minutes, indicated that the main recommendations involved banning students from bringing alcohol into the event and the establishment of a 21−plus pub area where of−age students would be able to buy a limited number of alcoholic beverages.
In response to the task force's suggestions, the TCU Senate passed its own resolution highlighting certain issues that it felt should be considered in the discussion.
"The idea was that these are ideas that, as I understand it, had not been presented or necessarily discussed in the context of the task force and were ideas that we believed should be discussed because they were potentially helpful ideas," TCU Senator Bruce Ratain, a junior, said.
The resolution called on the steering committee to consider allowing of−age students to bring in alcohol to Spring Fling and consume it at a designated 21−plus area. It cited the fact that at last year's Spring Fling, which was declared a mass casualty incident, all of the students requiring medical attention were under−aged and largely freshmen.
Ratain, who co−authored the resolution with fellow senator senior Xavier Malina, said that it was partly motivated by cost concerns and avoiding a situation in which students would have to shoulder heavy costs to purchase alcohol at the bar.
"One of the proposals of the task force was to create a bar area for students over 21," he said. "So that allows students to have alcohol at Spring Fling. If that's on the table, we thought it prudent to have alternatives to the cash bar be considered, especially because that's a costly venture."
The resolution also calls for a break from past policy, which would allow for reentry into the event, and recommends that the $10,000 that would otherwise have been used to establish the cash bar go toward adding personnel to supervise reentry.
Ratain suggested that this could reduce the level of dangerous drinking by eliminating the need for students to pre−game heavily before the event.
"There is a theory that students drink exorbitantly before the event knowing that they won't be able to drink over the course of the day while at the event," he said. "If that's the case … then students might drink more moderately before that event if they know they can leave later and then come back."
The Concert Board, which organizes the event, also drafted a set of recommendations. According to the Senate's meeting minutes, these include shortening Spring Fling, booking fewer acts, moving the show to a later time and hosting an event before Spring Fling.
Programming Board Co−Chair Sarah Habib, a junior, declined to comment on these recommendations.
Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) Capt. Mark Keith commented on the suggested reentry policy, saying that it would enable students' drinking.
"One of the issues there is if, as I understand, there won't be any alcohol coming into the venue, some of the concern there would be people coming in and then shooting out to do some drinking and then coming back, and that's not what we're looking for," he said.
He acknowledged some of the concerns associated with banning alcohol from the event.
"If people weren't allowed to bring in alcohol, what I would suspect is that people would tend to be drinking more outside before they get into the venue," Keith said. "In the past, most of [TUPD's] resources are inside the venue; we may have to reallocate our resources … to monitor things on and around campus."
Still, Keith supports the proposal. "I think we need to based on the last several years … and if they do prohibit alcohol coming I think that's probably a good thing," he said.
TCU President Brandon Rattiner, a senior who is a member of both the Alcohol Task Force and the steering committee, declined to comment extensively because deliberations are still ongoing.
"I can't really be too specific about it but … it's a compromise, and [the steering committee is] going to do the best we can to come up with a solution," he said.
He added that he will present the Senate's resolution and its recommendations to the committee. The steering committee will be meeting today.
Rattiner believes that the task force was representative of Tufts students. "The task force put together this document, and the task force was two−thirds students … from all walks of life," he said.
Habib stressed that despite all the attention possible changes to Spring Fling are getting, the event would not be much different and would still be enjoyable for students.
"Things are not changing that much," she said. "People are blowing this out of proportion; things are going to be fine, and it's still going to be an amazing Spring Fling. Spring Fling is not fundamentally going to change." Brent Yarnell contributed reporting to this article.
