Line monitor explains new tenting policies

Hello Duke Basketball fanatics! As the time for official DSG approval of the new line policy approaches, I would like to share with you the proposed policy changes and solicit your feedback as I have in the recent public forums. The policy is still fluid for another 10 days, so contact me with questions or concerns.

The most obvious change from last year is that the policy has been trimmed from eight pages down to three. The reason for this is very simple: no one bothers to read the whole policy if it is eight pages long. I have tried to make the policy more readable and less legalistic in tone while maintaining its clarity and comprehensiveness.

The biggest change in actual policy this year is the introduction of Black Tenting. For several years, there have been serious concerns about how early tenting begins. The difficulty here is that K-ville is fundamentally founded on a first-come, first-serve basis for admission. Setting a start date for tenting would be against the very spirit and purpose of K-ville, and I refuse to do that. However, people have arrived so early in recent years (Dec. 27 last year) that it has become an issue of health and safety. Especially with recent events on campus, it is simply not safe to have students in K-Ville with no open dorms to retreat to or University infrastructure to call upon. With that in mind, Black Tenting strikes a compromise between the spirit of K-Ville and the need to limit tenting before the spring semester starts. Its purpose is to be so difficult that students cannot reasonably do it for more than a few days, but also to allow students to begin whenever they wish. Black Tenting will require ten people each night, and eight during the day, with no grace except for home basketball games or a weather catastrophe. It will transition into Blue Tenting Jan. 10 or 11. Any Black Tent failing to meet its obligations will not be able to rejoin the line until after Blue Tenting has begun. This may knock you from Tent 1 to Tent 20, so please don’t attempt Black Tenting unless you are positive you can pull it off.

Other changes include the following: Because Blue Tenting will be extended this year, it has been made slightly easier, requiring only 6 people per night. There will be no secondary line for walk-up games, just one big line wrapping around K-ville. There will also be a line monitor tent; at least one line monitor will always be in K-ville to serve as a resource for tenters, and as another fan to hang out with. We will tent for the UNC game and the Wake Forest game. This decision was based predominantly on input from tenters and early evidence that the Duke-Wake game will be one of the most competitive of the season; also, the Maryland game is very close to the beginning of spring semester, which would have truncated tenting and encouraged more pre-New Year tent arrivals. Coincidentally, it’s a nice slap at our non-rivals at UMD that we won’t even bother to tent for them this year.

Most importantly, though, I want to see K-ville become a more consistent social center this year. Tenting should always be fun and communal. I can do only so much to promote this; the onus is really on you. Please design and hold your own events in K-ville, and if you need organizational support, I and my staff will be happy to help. In the end, K-ville is for you, and I hope we can work together to make it an even more vibrant atmosphere that helps Duke basketball succeed. Go Duke!

Steve Rawson is a senior and the head line monitor for Duke Student Government.