Tuesday, December 16th, 2003

Subject: new community x-posed everywhere.. sorry =/ Posted by: spark_that_bled. Time: 9:22 pm.

Hi, I just wanted to let everyone know of a new community I've started: boston_textbook In here you can sell, buy, or trade textbooks, this is for anyone in the Boston area, please join and sell your books! thank you!

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Subject: WSC Fundraiser - ProWrestling/Amateur Boxing Posted by: ericextreme. Time: 11:25 pm.

I know this is off topic and may not be relevent, but this pro wrestling/boxing fundraiser is for a good cause. ( Click here for more information ) http://www.WAMwrestling.org

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Posted by: shinxy. Time: 10:48 am. Mood: loved.

Just pimping my new radio show: Crows with knives, indie rock/pop, folk, electronic, and eclectic tunes to keep the crows at bay and keep your summer rocking hard. Wednesdays 3-5 PM, on 91.5 fm wmfo, tufts freeform radio. Listen on the web, streaming! www.wmfo.org Hurrah!

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Subject: Housing? Posted by: shinxy. Time: 8:43 pm. Mood: excited. Music: Cooler Kids-Sugartown.

I'm an incoming first year, and i'm wondering if it's a good idea to go for the first year residences or the bridge program. Anyone have any experience with either program? Some students during April Open House told me that the freshman dorms are considerably nicer, but I wonder if it would be more isolated socially. Should I elect for these programs or should I just go to the general lottery?

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Subject: Blizzard Effects Posted by: chaiya. Time: 1:11 am. Mood: calm.

Currently, all I can find is that Tufts is in emergency parking mode, same as everyone else. But I did find a phone number to call tomorrow morning and see if classes are on. 617-627-INFO (4636) is supposed to be updated tomorrow morning with the effects of the weather. I'm hoping that includes mention of whether classes are on. Keep warm, everyone!

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Subject: naked quad run article Posted by: shinxy. Time: 5:12 pm. Mood: good. Music: spacelab transmissions (www.spacelab.org).

An article about the naked quad run which appeared in the globe yesterday: TUFTS MAY NO LONGER BARE A STUDENT TRADITION Author(s):    Benjamin Gedan, Globe Correspondent Date: December 22, 2002 Page: B10 Section: Education Late on a recent Tuesday night, hundreds of Tufts University students packed a grassy campus quad, peeled off their clothes, and strolled, trotted, and dashed naked through the chilly air. Surrounding them was a thick crowd of amused and curious onlookers, and nearby, one who was not so amused. Tufts University president Lawrence Bacow, on campus for his first Naked Quad Run, was so alarmed that he fired off a campuswide e-mail the next day. "The combination of consumption of alcohol with a mad dash through an icy, hilly campus at night cannot continue," Bacow wrote. "You are far better than what was on display last night." Although Bacow did not officially ban the run, his letter has students worried about the future of their tradition, an annual Tufts ritual and popular prefinals stress reliever. "If they want to do away with it, people will be up in arms," said Dan Perez, 20, a junior who disrobed this year for the second time. "It's something you can never do anywhere but at Tufts that night. For that hour, it's perfectly OK to run naked." The run started in the 1970s, said Maura K. Kenny, a university archivist. Male students, opposing plans for coed housing, streaked across campus in protest. By 1987, they were joined by women. The university has long given its tacit endorsement to the event, maintaining a small police presence during the raucous festivities and occasionally opening its dining halls for a post-run pancake "breakfast." But naked athletics are rarely without controversy and similar traditions have come and gone at many colleges. Princeton University, for example, banned its "Nude Olympics" in 1999 after several students were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. At Luther College, an Evangelical institution in Decorah, Iowa, police arrested three students last May for participating in an annual coed naked soccer game. And at Michigan, official disapproval has seen a 1,500-runner event shrivel down to a few dozen people in their underwear. The Tufts run, however, has nearly unique staying power - and fame. Its three-decade history was immortalized in September when a documentary, "The Elephant People," was screened by a packed audience at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline. The display of bare flesh regularly lures droves of students onto the upper campus, and this year an unseasonably warm night also attracted Medford and Somerville residents, said a campus official. As temperatures hit 40 degrees, a 20-degree rise over the previous night, officials said the crowd reached unsafe proportions. In addition to about 200 nude runners, university officials said about 2,000 spectators attended, including scores of neighbors unaffiliated with the university. The combination of drinking, cold weather, and bare feet can make the run dangerous. In previous years, students have tripped on metal posts, scrapped knees on cement sidewalks and nose-dived onto a road that crosses the run's path. This year, at least six students were treated for broken ankles, dislocated bones, and alcohol poisoning, according to Tufts officials. Others suffered cuts from falls and human pileups. "That's not something we're going to let happen to our students," said dean of students Bruce Reitman. "It's just not OK." He also cited reports that students had been groped, photographed, and video taped by onlookers. In the e-mail, Bacow, who is in his second year as Tufts president, said he missed last year's Naked Quad Run, and was "sorely disappointed" after witnessing this semester's event. Through a secretary, Bacow, the former chancellor of MIT, declined to elaborate on his letter and directed questions to Reitman. "It's not very surprising that it would be shocking to him," said Sean C. Colon, a freshman who ran in the event this year. "It's a pretty wild event." The president's letter, which did not explicitly threaten cancellation, left students concerned about his intentions. As they prepared for exams last week, some accused Tufts of exaggerating incidents of groping and injuries. Despite the president's strong condemnation, Reitman said Bacow had no plans to ban the tradition, which takes place after the end of classes each fall. Possible policy changes, Reitman said, will first be discussed with students at community meetings after the winter vacation. "Any tradition we have is something we cherish and value," said Reitman, a Tufts alumnus, who graduated prior to the run's inception. "We're not eager to eliminate an event that students obviously are quite enamored of." Former Tufts president John DiBiaggio recalled that while walking his dogs on campus during his first fall semester at the university, a student warned him about the tradition and advised him to seek cover later that night. "I got out of there, that's what I did," he said. "Students have always been kind of silly," said DiBiaggio, who says he never attended the run. "It really never reached my desk as an issue of consequence." Bacow's decision, he said, seemed a response to threats to student safety, not a concern about "the morality of a naked quad run." If administrators stop next year's run, students said, they should expect impassioned protests. "Death of [the] naked quad run?" wrote senior Rasmus Figenschou in a call-to-arms e-mail to alumni. "I say we revolt. You guys should come back to the campus and take it back - naked!"

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