Tailgates at last weekend's Family Weekend football game
shut down at 1 p.m., a rule that has been in place for years but not
enforced until this year.
SAM CARAVANA / THE DEPAUW
For the remainder of the season, the Interfraternal Council (IFC) is taking action to restrict the fraternity tailgating that occurs before every home football game.
Starting last weekend, all fraternity tailgates will be required to shutdown in time for kickoff.The DePauw University Tailgating Guidelines state, “Tailgating activities should cease at game time…tailgating activities can resume at halftime, but fans should return to the competition venue for the second half.”
This regulation has been in place for years, but administration officials and IFC struggled to enforce it.
The new director of fraternity and sorority life, Tracy Machtan, is leading the push for more stern enforcement.
“A tailgate is a celebration of game day,” Machtan said. “We tailgate to celebrate there is a game going on and that we can go into the game and have fun together.”
While Machtan may be leading the charge, she is not alone in her crusade. IFC has also backed the change.
Alex Parker, the vice president of operations for IFC, reiterated Machtan’s reasoning behind the push.
“We are tailgating because there is a football game,” Parker said. “If we’re not going to the football game, why tailgate?”
Fraternities were made aware of the new enforcement the week of Sept. 22.
“I had one on one’s with every fraternity, and we had a really good discussion of what to expect,” Machtan said.
Despite the heads-up, on Sept. 27 some fraternity tailgates continued past kickoff.
Myrna Hernandez, assistant dean of campus life, said that there were “fraternities that were still there because … they didn’t agree with it.”
Once kickoff has taken place the expectation is “to have music off, drinking stop and people to go into the game,” Parker said.
The only individuals who should stay back at the tailgate site should be individuals there to monitor fraternity belongings.
Another change to tailgates includes a central speaker system, which will be used for the first time this week. The speaker system will replace each fraternity bringing speakers and playing their own music. According to Machtan and Parker, the proposal was voted on in an IFC meeting this past week and approved unanimously by representatives from each house according to Parker and Machtan.
Will Block, the vice president of Beta Theta Pi Fraterity, represented his chapter at the IFC meeting and remembered a different outcome.
“I wouldn’t say it was unanimous, one or two chapters didn’t vote for it or against it,” Block said.
IFC President Jim Perry that one or two chapters may have abstained.
Fraternity representatives at IFC meetings weren’t the only people that disagreed with the push.
“I don’t like it,” senior Christopher Gerhardstein said. “Allowing each fraternity to play its own music lets it create its own vibe for its tailgate.”
Despite the resistance, the proposal was approved and will be in place for Old Gold weekend. The plan is that individual chapters and the university will supply four to six speakers to be spread through out the tailgate. A playlist composed of songs submitted by members of participating fraternities will play on the speakers for the duration of the tailgate. This central speaker plan, proposed by Parker, is being implemented with two goals in mind.
“The goal is to essentially avoid any cross music,” Parker said.
The secondary goal of the system is crowd control.
“We hope that once we shut off the music the party will start to slowly die down,” Parker said.
In addition to the musical entertainment, a countdown to kickoff will be broadcasted over the speakers to encourage students to go to the game. Encouraging game attendance is the ultimate objective of all the changes.