Aiming to quell the confusion that has cropped up in recent days among students who have been camping out for the remaining home men's basketball games, Duke Student Government updated its home page Wednesday night in order to delineate more clearly the guidelines of its spring semester tenting policy.
Instead of tenting separately for each men's basketball game, students must tent simultaneously for the last six home match-ups-Maryland (Jan. 29), Georgia Tech (Feb. 1), Florida State (Feb. 10), Wake Forest (Feb. 14), UCLA (Feb. 22) and North Carolina (Feb. 28)-of the spring semester. Students also had to tent simultaneously for the Dec. 6 game against Virginia and the Dec. 10 game against Villanova.
Although DSG last year allowed only 10 people per tent and an essentially unlimited number of tents, it now is permitting 15 people per tent and is capping the total number of tents at 100. The ongoing construction of the West Campus recreational facility, which forced Krzyzewskiville onto a smaller parcel of land this year, caused the policy modifications.
One notable change to this year's policy is absence of a maximum tenting period. Last year, no tents could be set up more than 10 days prior to any home game. If tents were set up, DSG had warned, they would be confiscated by the Grounds Department. This year, however, the revised policy permitted students to set up their tents as early as they liked.
The policy, therefore, encouraged many students to cut short their winter breaks in the hopes of getting a low number. Trinity senior Lisa Levine, leader of Tent 1, said members of her tent returned to campus Jan. 3 in order to pitch their tent.
Occupancy checks for tents have been ongoing since formal registration, which took place Jan. 13, at 5 p.m. outside of Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Because of this year's extended tenting season, the DSG home page explains, the periods before the Maryland game and between the Georgia Tech and Florida State games will feature restricted tent-check hours. During those two periods-the first of which ends at 9 a.m. today, one week before the Maryland game-occupancy checks will be conducted only from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. on weekdays and from noon to midnight on weekends.
Outside of those two periods, however, occupancy checks can occur at any time, which means that all tents will have to be manned 24 hours a day by at least one person. DSG will announce the beginning of the next restricted tent-check period around the time of the Georgia Tech game.
As always, personal checks will occur during the 48 hours immediately preceding each game. No changes can be made to the make-up of any tent during this period, and each tenter will be required to make three of five personal checks in order to be allowed into the game. Personal checks will not be conducted from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, but occupancy checks can occur during that time.
Although students cannot enter or switch tents during personal-check periods, they can do so at all other times-assuming, of course, that room is available in the tent into which they want to move.
DSG currently has a waiting list for students not in a tent. If members of a currently numbered tent need an extra tenter, they can consult the waiting list to recruit one.
Students who are not tenting but who still want to get into upcoming home games have the option of forming a line in front of Cameron on game day. Although DSG makes no guarantee that such students will get into the game, engineering senior Rajeev Chopra and Trinity senior Kevin Kiefert, this year's head line monitors for DSG, said that if enough tenters decide not to attend, they will admit as many students from the line as they can. Cameron's undergraduate capacity, they said, is about 1,250-1,300. Although there are currently 100 tents, Chopra and Kiefert said there are fewer than 1,500 students in Krzyzewskiville because not all of the tents are filled to capacity. They estimated that about 1,000 students currently are camping out.
Tent checks also will not take place during all home women's basketball games in order to encourage tenters to attend. Occupancy checks also will not take place during all televised away men's basketball games and during all home men's games. DSG has also scheduled a grace period from 3 p.m. to midnight this coming Sunday, Jan. 25, for the Super Bowl.
Line monitors will announce grace periods after each occupancy check. Although Sheri Sauter, Trinity '97 and last year's head line monitor, maintained a standard four-hour grace period during the tenting season, Chopra and Kiefert chose not to do so this year. Explaining that they found the predetermined grace period policy too confining, they instead will announce varied grace periods after each occupancy check. Each post-game grace period will be announced right before the start of that game. The length of the grace period "often depends on circumstances such as start time of the game, weather conditions, etc.," Kiefert said in an e-mail message Tuesday.
The penalties for missed occupancy checks will be as follows: After the first miss, DSG will issue the tent a warning; after the second miss, the tent will be bumped to the end of the active line; after the third miss, the tent will be given another warning; after the fourth miss, the tent will be bumped to the end of the waiting list. After the third game of the six-game tenting series, which is the Feb. 10 Florida State game, each tent's slate will be cleared and their previous misses no longer will be counted against them.
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