Last night at 10 pm Larry Moneta, Duke's VP for Student Affairs, sent out an email to the student body effectively cancelling Tailgate, forever.
If you don't know what Duke Tailgate is, then watch this…
A minor, a sibling of an absolutely moronic, irresponsible student was found passed out in a Blue Zone port-a-john. He is apparently fine, and that's good. But the administration jumped on this as the perfect opportunity to end Tailgate once and for all. They have been trying to end it for many years. Now is the perfect opportunity. Or is it?
Student response to the email was swift. Within minutes, a student had an organized event called "Main Quad Throwdown" up on facebook. Within hours, about a quarter of the student body had RSVP'd as "attending." That is 1250+ students. Within 3 hours. Impressive. The administration potentially has a large problem on their hands.
As of this moment, 1500 people are attending and 4000 are "awaiting reply." This Throwdown could possibly be larger than LDOC and it is going to be right in the middle of the main quad, a crazy, drunken rager right in front of everyone: students, parents, tourists, fans, little kids. And believe me, student response to Tailgate's cancellation has been outrage, but not the kind of outrage that plagues so many "activist groups," where they are appalled but don't do anything about it. No, the students are mobilized, and the administration gave us 5 days to plan it.
There are a few important issues here that need to be put out there:
1. A main reason for cancelling Tailgate, besides the obvious safety concerns, is that very few students actually attend the football game. Most Tailgate ragers go get some food and fall asleep, wake up 6 hours later and rally for Shooters. The football program struggles with attendance so much that they already close the gym on game days to discourage working out during game time. Apparently they feel people will just be like, "Oh, I can't go to the gym so I may as well just go to the game." It doesn't work out that way. Obviously, people don't appreciate a dictator-like move and are repelled. Has game day attendance gone up?
But wait, why the heck is the football team so special??? Attendance is lower at games like soccer and baseball, field hockey and wrestling matches, swim and track meets. So why don't administrators care about those teams as much as our floundering, awful football program? Maybe because they pump a TON more money into the football program and get no return on their investment. They are struggling to rationalize the decision to put so much money into something so bad.
2. OK, you cancelled Tailgate. You got rid of a security-moderated, EMS attended party that brings hundreds of otherwise incredibly independent students together in one place to have fun for a couple hours. The only other events at Duke that are as well attended as Tailgate are the basketball games. There is very little cohesion in our campus culture and you just made it worse. You just empowered the Greek scene even more, and now even larger parties will be thrown off-campus, in Durham neighborhoods, and these parties will definitely not have security guards or EMS on-call. No, do you think kids are just going to wake up on Saturday morning, and instead of Tailgating, go to Perkins and work all afternoon? Or, even go to the game?
No, you should know this by now, but Duke students are smart, and we get what we want. Main Quad Throwdown is a perfect example of a calculated response that was generated within minutes. If students want to party hard on weekends, then they will. We work incredibly hard all week and taking away something like Tailgate may peeve people initially, but I guarantee that very soon, something will be generated to take its place, for the long term. The Throwdown is obviously a one-time deal, but if this "newer, better way to Tailgate and enjoy the game" that admin is "going to be developing during the Spring as an alternative" is lame, the students will create an un-lame alternative very quickly, and if it not supported by the administration, then it will be brought off campus.
Main Quad Throwdown. 11/13/10. Duke University Main Quad. Come, if not to party, then to support a fundamentally democratic movement created and facilitated by Duke Students for Duke Students. I wonder if a news truck will get wind of this ;-)
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