Spring Fling has been a Temple tradition for three decades. Upperclassmen can’t wait, freshman tingle with anticipation and teachers shrug their shoulders when most of their students don’t show up to class.
The tradition comes down to planning. After 30 years, Student Activities, Main Campus Program Board, Facilities Management and Campus Safety Services all feel as though they’ve got it down to a T.
“We have a good system,” said Christopher Carey, Student Activities program coordinator. “Sometimes there are constraints, but … because it’s tradition, people look forward to it. It promotes itself.”
On April 7, after all vendor applications were received, staff from all participating offices met to discuss their responsibilities. Few things are changed each year, which makes the process easier.
Student Activities receives applications from vendors, student organizations and Temple departments. They are also responsible for booking the live music.
“It’s typically the same vendors every year,” Carey said. “Once a vendor does the event, they usually like it. At this point, we don’t recruit ourselves.”
One difference this year is the amount of involvement by MCPB, which helped decide this year’s green theme.
“This year we evolved to include more students,” Carey said.
Along with Students for Environmental Action, MCPB helped get the word out to vendors on ways to incorporate the theme.
Campus Police are also an important part of Spring Fling because so many people, both Temple students and others, are on campus.
“We see deployment as the best way on campus to prevent problems,” said Charles Leone, deputy director of Campus Safety Services.
Prior to and during Spring Fling, Campus Police perform more random bag checks at Temple’s residence halls. On the day of Spring Fling, the campus is broken into four quadrants for easier monitoring, more officers are put on bike patrol and campus cameras are monitored more heavily.
All of these are preventive measures, and police pay careful attention to areas on campus that draw large crowds. Later in the day, police monitor houses that are having parties, in case a of a complaint or behavior problems.
Campus Police have learned their lessons over the years, though there haven’t been many problems in the last several years, Leone said. More problems occurred more than 10 years ago.
“I have to give the students credit. They’ve been really responsive,” Leone said. “We don’t get a lot of celebratory violence like we used to. Maybe it’s a sign of the times.”
Morgan Ashenfelter can be reached at morgan.a@temple.edu.
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