Every year, Spring Fling leaves students with great memories - of the great music, of the warm weather and of the way the day's festivities bring members of the Tufts community together. Perhaps the most memorable part of this event is the attire, specifically the hundreds of personalized T-shirts made by students.
Last year, Tufts' tradition of making Spring Fling T-shirts became the subject of national news after the men's crew team was admonished for wearing shirts that said, Check out our cox," a joke that referenced the crew position of coxswain. The shirts violated team policy due to a lack of authorization by the coaches, and the team was barred from participating in the New England Rowing Championships, a decision that was later overturned by University President Anthony Monaco. In addition, a bias incident was filed against the men's crew team, sparking a discussion of free speech.
The incident last year was not the first time a student group has been penalized for their Spring Fling shirts. In 2011, an inappropriate shirt was one of the reasons for Delta Upsilon fraternity's placement on probation. In April of the same year, the Tufts Community Union Senate passed a resolution requiring all fraternities and sororities to submit their shirt designs for approval.
While no bias incidents related to Spring Fling clothing had been reported at press time, Director of the Office of Campus Life (OCL) Joe Golia affirmed that university policies continue to apply to Spring Fling T-shirts.
"The rules, policies [and] regulations do not change for Spring Fling. Should there be a problem with a shirt design, that will be handled by the policies that are already in place. Students can always ask our opinion, however they are not required to," Golia told the Daily in an email.
Despite the negative press surrounding shirts last year, plenty of students returned to the President's Lawn decked out in a colorful array of themed attire. Golia attributed this to it being a campus tradition.
"It's one of those Tufts traditions that everyone really enjoys and brings the community together for an unorganized, fun sense of competition," Golia said. "One thing I notice is that everyone is very proud of what they come up with and try to outdo each other year after year."
While Golia could not confirm exactly when the tradition began - it has at least been in effect since he arrived at Tufts five years ago - he estimated that it was a long-standing tradition. This year, Golia added, the university got in on the tradition itself by handing out a large quantity of free shirts at a barbeque hosted prior to Spring Fling on the Mayer Campus Center's Lower Patio as well as Tuftonia's Day shirts the day before.
Every year, student groups organize weeks prior to the event to design their shirts. Those who get the shirts printed often turn to websites like CustomInk, which allows users to create and share a T-shirt design online, or to campus-based groups such as Tufts Student Resources (TSR), which provides T-shirt designing services.
For many students, the most difficult decision remains which shirt to wear. Naturally, as many Tufts students are involved in different activities and bond with their halls and housemates, the process of choosing what to wear on the day of Spring Fling becomes complicated.
Senior Karen Adler remedied this problem by bringing both of her shirts to the event - one made for her housemates and one as a member of Tufts Historical Society. The latter shirt featured a play on the standard Jumbo logo with the beloved elephant sporting a top hat and monocle.
"A friend of mine came up with it - it's Jumbo being generally historical and awesome," Adler said of the shirt.
Adler's other shirt was designed by a housemate as a surprise.
"It said Spring Fling and was very multicolored - it had a multicolored hedgehog with the Nelly Band-Aid," Adler said. "Then she put our favorite number and something about all of us on the back of the shirt."
Another common theme seen each year is that many groups' shirts feature jokes related to the musical artists headlining the event. This year many shirts paid homage to Grammy-award winning headliner Nelly, including those worn by students who are members of the Academic Resource Center's Writing Fellows program. Senior Veronica Richter helped create the shirt, which referenced Nelly's song "Country Grammar" (2000).
"We do writing, tutoring and ... a lot of grammar stuff. So we thought it would be really fun to play off of the 'Country Grammar' theme and Nelly's notoriously terrible lyrics," Richter said.
This year, one popular shirt featured a photo of Monaco edited to make him look as if he were sporting Nelly's famous look of grills and a Band-Aid on the cheek. The shirt gained notoriety after a student, sophomore Simon Warchol, posted on Monaco's Facebook page asking if he could gain access to the copyrighted image that was used for the shirt.
Monaco responded with a phone number the student could call for permission adding that he would "love to have a shirt."
When more and more students commented expressing interest in purchasing the shirt, Warchol opened the opportunity up to the Tufts community. He created a Google document for students to place orders, closing it only minutes later after over 100 orders were placed. Warchol then contacted students directly to receive payment in exchange for their shirts. On Friday, Monaco posted a photo of himself wearing the shirt to Facebook.
Monaco, however was not the only university figurehead to be honored with a shirt design. The students of Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) this year organized to create a shirt that featured a vintage photograph of Institute for Global Leadership Director Sherman Teichman with the word "Shermandipity," a play on Teichman's catchphrase.
"[Teichman] is our teacher, but also our role model and guide for EPIIC this year. His word is 'Serendipity,' so we just kind of put them together," senior and EPIIC student Nithyaa Venkataramani said. "We did a lot of weird Google Image[s] searching
