A subcommittee of the Alcohol Task Force met yesterday to discuss potential improvements to student safety at Spring Fling, amid rumors that originated from a senior's e-mail to hundreds of undergraduates in which he erroneously suggested the administration might cancel the annual event.
At a regularly scheduled meeting, the task force's events subcommittee discussed the role of alcohol at the annual celebration, and how to make Spring Fling safer for attendees, members of the group told the Daily. The administration chartered the task force this year in response to conduct at last year's Spring Fling and other alcohol-related concerns. The task force is comprised of students, administrators and staff.
"Right now, the committee is trying to balance reasonable policy with behavior change," said Tufts Community Union President Brandon Rattiner, who sits on the task force and attended yesterday's meeting. "We're looking at pre-gaming and drinking at the event. Ultimately the committee is just trying to do something that will make Spring Fling safer."
Many seniors and other undergraduates worried this week that the administration might go so far as to cancel or ban alcohol at the event, possibilities mentioned in an e-mail sent Tuesday by task force member Kevin Wong, a senior.
"I believe that these ideas would form an incomplete policy that only considers one particular part of the problem," Wong said in the e-mail, which he sent to at least 800 seniors and other students. "I need your help to represent this school in delivering our opinion as students to the administration who will ultimately enact these decisions into policy.
Wong sits on the committee in part because of a current internship he has at Health Service.
Other task force members yesterday adamantly denied that the cancellation of the event had ever been deliberated, and Wong later backtracked from his statement.
"There has not been a discussion about canceling Spring Fling," Rattiner said. "It has never ever, ever been a realistic possibility."
"That's not true," said task force member and Director of Health Education Ian Wong when told of Kevin Wong's assertions.
But Ian Wong declined to comment on whether the task force was considering limiting or prohibiting alcohol from being carried into the event, which traditionally takes place on the President's Lawn at the end of the spring semester, citing the preliminary nature of the task force's discussions.
"It's too early to say" what specific recommendations the group will make, Wong said.
In his e-mail, Kevin Wong directed students to a specially created Web site devoted to his message. On it, visitors could watch a video entitled "Tufts Policy Petition — Save Spring Fling 2010," in which Wong called on students to "voice their opinion so that we may have a direct influence on these policy decisions."
The site contained a survey asking students for their opinions on alcohol and Spring Fling festivities; around 400 students responded, Wong said last night.
"My goal for the petition was to encourage and foster discussion on the policy decisions that have not been set in stone yet, so that students would have the opportunity to voice their personal opinions on the subject," Wong said in a statement sent in an e-mail to the Daily last night.
Rattiner said he doubted Wong intended to spark a controversy.
"I think he didn't realize that throwing the word ‘cancel' in would ignite such emotion and cause such a reaction," Rattiner said.
Wong said he was merely interested in making the process more democratic.
"I regret if my actions or words seemed to imply that other representational forces are not enough because that is not what I believe," he said in the statement. "I was hoping to empower students to speak for themselves and make it easier for them to contribute their creative and progressive solutions to age-old problems."
The petition was intended to increase student involvement in the decision-making process, Wong said.
"I'm trying to open the discussion to the student body as much as possible, and make the information about this issue as clear as possible," he said in a phone interview yesterday evening, adding in a later phone interview that he also wanted to make the information as inclusive as possible.
Rattiner said the student-driven nature of the task force, which has representatives from Tufts Emergency Medical Services, the Senate, resident assistant staff and other groups, makes the drastic changes originally suggested by Wong unlikely.
"We're looking out for what's in the student body's popular interest," Rattiner said. "The committee is two-thirds students, so if some part of the committee ever said we're going to cancel Spring Fling, the students would say no and that would be the end of the conversation."
The Alcohol Task Force will make recommendations to a specially formed steering committee also looking at alcohol policy. That committee is made up of administrators and staff, as well as Rattiner, the sole student representative.
Ian Wong cautioned against reading too much into the proceedings at meetings of the task force, citing the limited authority of the body.
"The Task Force only has the power to make a proposal, not to implement it," he said. "Whatever we come up with, that doesn't mean that's actually going to happen."
The group will meet again next week to discuss the issue of Spring Fling further, he said.
