RIP, Tufts Naked Quad Run

“Even if I did not act now, [Naked Quad Run] would end some day. The only question is whether a student has to die first.”

For a school once known for naked parties, Wesleyan has been rather quiet lately. Ever since the administration shut down Art House (the annual party’s now defunct venue), wes may or may not be living up to its mention in this Wikipedia article.

Elsewhere, university administrators are cracking down on naked celebrations: at Yale and now Tufts, where President Lawrence Bacow recently banned the Naked Quad Run, an annual pre-Finals Week tradition dating back to 1970. (In previous years, NQR participators have been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, as well as broken limbs. Think of it like TDF, but naked.) As President Bacow wrote in an op-ed last spring,

“Given that we can no longer manage the run, we cannot allow this ‘tradition’ to continue,” Bacow said in the op-ed. “Even if I did not act now, NQR would end some day. The only question is whether a student has to die first. We cannot allow this to happen, and the Naked Quad Run will not continue.”

Naked run participants were threatened with a full-semester suspension. Without a WesParty Guy to save the day, Tufts students took matters into their own hands: they held an “Excessively Overdressed Quad Stroll”:

In what they called “the excessively overdressed quad stroll,” students wore costumes and absurd outfits as they walked slowly around the quad.

They did this in the middle of a strong police presence from Tufts University and local police. Somerville police had cruisers and officers stationed at the university’s perimeter on Packard Avenue, and a handful of university police officers monitored the event on campus.

Given the annual police presence and alcohol hospitalization shitstorm, the Tour de Franz comparison seems obvious (except, of course, our administration never sanctioned the event in the first place). With Tour de Franzia forums filling up PAC 002 and likely harsher TDF prevention attempts on the horizon in spring (they said they’d “take precautionary measures and deal with any organizers ahead of time,” but that didn’t quite pan out), what does this mean for Wes? Should we(s-party-guy) go ahead and replace it with a brisk Tour de Grape Juice stroll?

Whatever. As long as they don’t get rid of Wesleyan’s clothing-optional library.

Links:

• Bacow Ends Naked Quad Run (Tufts Daily)
• Tufts Naked Quad Run Becomes ‘Excessively Overdressed Quad Stroll’ (Medford Patch)
• Yale PD Investigating Annual Naked Party (Wesleying)
• Naked Donut Run: At Last (Brown BlogDailyHerald)