As someone who tented from Jan. 10 to March 4, I feel it is necessary to say that this year's tenting process was run in an incompetent fashion (though by nice people). I hope in future years the following problems from this year, among others, are not repeated:
The IM building was not left open for the first week of tenting. This meant that students had nowhere to go to the bathroom from midnight until 6 a.m. This had predictable results.
The night when N.C. State wristbands were given out, the weather forecast showed that it was going to rain. When it started raining at 11:30 p.m. the line monitors started giving out wristbands a half hour early. It took 90 minutes to give out the wristbands. This process could have been started earlier or sped up.
The last night of personal checks before the UNC game exemplified this incompetence. Despite there being at least 1500 people and thousands of cans of beer in K-ville, the IM building had the only available bathrooms. The building's main area was reserved by graduate students who refused to let undergraduates in from the small entrance area, despite the low-thirties temperature outside.
Senior Ajay Kori, a member of DSG Executive Cabinet, tried to negotiate with the graduate students. This resulted in talk that seemed designed primarily to delay for the entire night (which it did). It is not clear how the IM building came to be reserved by a small group of graduate students and unavailable to undergraduates who had been tenting for weeks and weeks. Over the course of almost three hours no one could reach senior Lauren Troyer, the head line monitor, to have her deal with the situation. She was completely unaware of it at 1:20 a.m. when she arrived back in K-ville at the time of the first check.
Only five or six line monitors were doing the personal checks for 100 tents. Most of the line monitors were standing around talking to their friends. This resulted in incredibly long waits. Duke students deserve better.
Joel Wiles
Trinity '06
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