Organizers and students who attended last Thursday's Senior Pub Night were pleased with the event, citing considerably fewer rowdy incidents than last fall's events.
The event, the first pub night of the semester, took place at Hurricane O'Reilly's in Boston.
"It went really well," Senior Class Council President Lindsey Rosenbluth said. "We're thrilled with the outcome."
Rowdy and inappropriate student behavior at the first Senior Pub Night last fall put last year's Senior Pub Nights in jeopardy. The administration decided to cancel the events for the remainder of the semester but resumed them in the spring.
A tamer crowd so far this year, however, means that the pub nights will continue for the Class of 2011.
"I think people had a great time and were able to enjoy themselves but didn't take it too far," Rosenbluth said. "We're excited that we'll be able to host more in the future."
Office for Campus Life (OCL) Director Joe Golia agreed that Thursday's event marked an improvement over past years'. In particular, he said the busing system to and from the bar was well-run, and students respected the rule not to bring alcohol on the buses.
Still, the event did not go off completely without incident.
Managerial staff at Hurricane O'Reilly's decided to end the event at approximately 1 a.m., one hour before the night was slated to end.
The decision to close early always lies with the host establishment, Golia said. The venue's staff, decided that it was in the students' best interest to stop alcohol service early, he said.
"It was for everybody's safety and security," he said. "We were OK with that and went along with what the place decides."
The bar's staff escorted out a few students who were exhibiting excessively drunken behavior. Beyond this, Golia said the OCL heard of no other complaints from the venue's personnel.
"There definitely were some incidents of rowdy, drunken students who were a little disrespectful to the place … but the numbers were very low," he said. "Definitely the majority were fine."
Some students said they saw a girl attempt to urinate in the main room of the bar, and that she was subsequently ejected from the establishment. Public urination took place at last fall's event.
Senior Gabriela Gerlach enjoyed the pub night and found student behavior to be better than she expected.
"I pretty much thought it was going to be like a giant frat party and wasn't expecting much from the students," she said. "I heard some students were pulled out, but that was bound to happen. Overall, considering my expectations, [students] behaved."
Despite improvements from last fall, Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said the Tufts community still had work to do before student behavior reached an acceptable level. He said he was disappointed that attendees continued to treat pub night as an occasion to "get wasted."
"There was no really bad, outrageous behavior, but on the other hand, there was a lot of drunkenness," he said. "I'm not sure it's anything to feel proud about yet."
The Senior Class Council and OCL are planning one remaining pub night for the semester at the end of October or beginning of November, according to Rosenbluth. They have not yet decided on a location.
Senior Victoria Gram said that she had fun on Thursday and plans to attend the next pub night but hoped that the ticket distribution process would be improved.
Organizers are hoping to set up an online ticketing system to make ticket distribution easier, Rosenbluth said. They had originally hoped to do so for this event but could not get the system up in time.
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Ben Gittleson contributed reporting to this article.
