College Park residents support new on-campus tailgates

On Saturday, Oct. 12, the University of Maryland held its first Greek on-campus tailgate before the game against the University of Virginia.

By noon, about 2,500 UMD students had migrated from off-campus fraternity satellite houses to the Comcast Center's lawn ready to drink, play games and socialize before the Terps took the field.

The idea to move tailgating on-campus emerged from suggestions made by the College Park City Council’s Neighborhood Stabilization and Quality of Life Workgroup, which aims to explore ways for students and College Park residents to work together to improve the community, reported the Diamondback.

The council voiced some common complaints among residents, including rowdy student partying, incessant noise and a high volume of trash.

“In the past, there's been a strained relationship between students and the city, and residents blame students for many problems in the city, but the new tailgates should improve that relationship,” explained Catherine McGrath, the director of City Affairs at the University of Maryland.

When the tailgate plans were finalized and announced at the Oct. 8 city council meeting, several audience members erupted in applause.

“It's about time,” said former councilmember and north College Park resident Mary Cook.

Cook spoke out numerous times during the meeting about the high volume of noise made by students on and off-campus.

“I shouldn't be able to hear it from inside my house,” she said. “It's just not right.”

A photo of the tailgate taken by Aakash Patel.

As a brother of Sigma Nu at the University of Maryland, sophomore Aakash Patel agrees that moving tailgates on campus greatly benefits both the residents of College Park and fraternities.

“I'm glad we're not annoying families as much on game days,” he said.

“We're also saving a lot of money because we aren't being fined,” Patel said, explaining that College Park police were fining fraternities when they violated the city's noise ordinances.

However, some of this money saved will go toward financing the new tailgates.

The IFC (inter-fraternity council) paid between $2,000 and $3,000 from chapter dues for the first tailgate. But, if this event is successful and more are held in the future, it’s likely that cost will rise, reported the Diamondback.

Councilmember Stephanie Stullich would like to see this cost made more bearable for Maryland's fraternities.

“I would like to see the City support them in some way,” she said, after attending the first tailgate.

“We were certainly supportive of the concept, but this time around, if there's a way to provide some sort of assistance, financial or otherwise, I certainly would be in favor of that.”

“These new tailgates are a win-win for everyone,” she said.

Junior EJ Whyte is more skeptical of the new tailgates.

“The university doesn't account for the number of people in Greek life who don't get along,” Whyte said.

“Some fraternities don't like each other and don’t interact, and now we're forcing them into the same place with alcohol. Something bad is bound to happen.”

Though Whyte believes students might be able to work through this, he isn't sure the outcome is truly worth the effort.

“I don’t think it really saves the residents in the community from that much because this is only for football season,” he said.

Come spring and warm weather, students will return to the satellite houses to hold “day drinks” at every chance they get, Whyte pointed out.

“I personally don’t have that much sympathy for residents,” Whyte said.

“This is a college town. This school has been around longer than any of those residents and that's not going to change.”