Holding an alternative to Spring Fling on a Saturday afternoon will not prevent students from day drinking or keep the community safer.
Temple will host “Cherry-On Experience Day” at the Geasey Field Complex on April 12. The event will feature outdoor events but be restricted by security. If anything, it will only incite hordes of students to partake in the kind of illicit behavior the university had discouraged in the first place.
Frankly, we think the whole thing is a bad idea.
When administrators canceled Spring Fling in August, they said the event had become a detriment to the university’s academic climate because too many students used Spring Fling as an excuse to drink and skip class.
President Theobald said Spring Fling had been “hijacked by a group of people that make this into a bacchanal, a drinking fest.” Dean of Students Stephanie Ives said students treated Spring Fling like a “drinking holiday.”
True, many students skipped class on Spring Fling and some attended class drunk. But if the university was interested in discouraging drinking during Temple-hosted activities, it’s puzzling that administrators would choose to schedule this new event for a Saturday evening.
It’s a safe guess that many students, rebelling against the university’s decision to cancel Spring Fling in the first place, will attempt to get drunk during next month’s event before going out that Saturday night.
We also question why the university chose to locate the event on the fringe of Temple’s surrounding community.
What will our neighbors in North Philadelphia have to say about this?
After West Chester student Ali Fausnaught fell to her death from an off-campus rooftop during last year’s Spring Fling, safety should have been the administration’s top concern in scheduling an alternative. But the choice to hold the event on a Saturday away from the center of Main Campus only encourages students to day drink and wander off-campus.
We predict attendance at the event will be minimal compared to the number of students drinking on rooftops.
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