Students keep clothes on for first snowfall

At midnight Monday, students smoked cigarettes in Holder Courtyard or tramped home from the library. Snow dusted the campus, but nothing was out of the ordinary the night of the first snowfall — the third since the University banned the Nude Olympics in 1999.

With the last class to have witnessed the Nude Olympics graduating this year, it seems the former tradition — an event where sophomores stripped and frolicked in the snow — or any other first-snowfall tradition, has ended.

The Nude Olympics was banned in 1999 after reports of severe intoxication, sexual assault, harrassment, vandalism and general lewd and raucous behavior. The combination of alcohol, nudity, mob behavior and ice created an environment too dangerous to continue, the committee on the Nude Olympics concluded. To make the ban stick, the University enacted a one-year suspension for any future participants.

With snowfall reminding students of the ban, a majority of students interviewed this week epressed the need for a winter activity to replace the Nude Olympics and release reading period steam.

"It would be nice to have something to replace it," Eliot Davidoff '05 said. "It does sort of feel like we missed out."

The problem, however, is striking a balance between students' desire to test limits and the University's need to ensure safety.

That balance appears to be tipped in the administration's favor. Nearly all ideas suggested by class officers over the past years have been rejected.

The committee on the Nude Olympics recommended in 1999 that the University support the Class of 2002 in efforts to create an alternative event. But numerous suggestions, including a bonfire, a beach party, a food fight and a snowball fight, were all vetoed.

The Class of 2003's ideas were also nixed.

"What ended up happening was the same thing that happened with [Class of 2002 president Ben Shopsin]," said Class of 2003 president Catherine Farmer. "Anything that we came up with that we thought our class would like, it didn't seem the University would approve."

This year's sophomore class officers never considered any alternatives seriously, 2004 president Eli Goldsmith said, because administrators made it clear anything similar to the Nude Olympics was against the rules.

The brickwalls officers have encountered are a result of the broad phrasing of what constitues a violation. University regulations forbid "any activity that is perceived to perpetuate gatherings or events that contain or encourage some or all of the behaviors that have been associated with past Nude Olympics."

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Though administrators did not clarify what events would be allowed, they said the University is not opposed to the idea of an alternative, as long as it was constructive and presented few risks.

Such a petri-dish environment, students said, would not foster class unity as well as the Nude Olympics did.

In an interview last week, President Tilghman challenged the notion that an event would have to be spontaneous or test limits to have the same class-building effects.

"There may be phenomenal ways to create class unity that is not only effective as the Nude Olympics but is lasting," she said. Tilghman suggested that Dartmouth College's winter carnival could be used as model for a winter activity at Princeton.

The winter carnival is held the second weekend in February, said Linda Kennedy, Dartmouth's student activities director, and opens with a torchlight parade that ends at a 40-foot snow sculpture that students spend weeks preparing.

The festival continues with ski races, sports competitions and concerts. Though the college has prevented the event from derailing into disorder by scheduling many activities, Kennedy said, the event does push limits.

And nudity is a factor. Several students opt to do the annual polar bear swim in the buff. In addition, the college has restricted kegs and fraternity parties during the weekend.

Nudity plays a prominent role in student traditions and social life at other colleges.

At Harvard University, students participate in the Primal Scream, running naked through the library during winter finals period. Nude library runs also occur at Yale University, where other au naturale events include naked punt returns, skinny dipping and "check-your-clothing-at-the-door" parties.

In recent years, higher education leaders across the country have sought to reduce alcohol consumption associated with school traditions.

Many of these events, Tilghman said, are seen as an excuse by students to drink recklessly.

At Cornell University, administrators have recommended banning alcohol on Slope Day, an event where students drink on a slope to celebrate the last day of classes. In addition, they have offered a non-alcoholic alternative called Slope Fest.

At the University of California-Los Angeles, administrators have threathened participants of the Midnight Yell — an event, in which students strip and shout — with disciplinary action.

These policy changes for traditions at campuses nationwide are a result of the increased concern among university administrators about risk and liability.

Liability in campus traditions came to boil on campuses after students died in a bonfire at Texas A&M University in 1998.

"As we are concerned more and more about risk, we have had to find ways to change such traditions that are particulary dangerous," said Janet Dickerson, the University's student life vice president.

How the Nude Olympics began, no one really knows and legends vary. One story goes that during reading period in 1970, a Holder group known as the Bachelors 6, would entertain the hall by lighting bottle rockets and running nude in the courtyard. The group, from entryway No. 6, challenged other entryways one night to a competition nicknamed the Nude Olympics.

Another story reports that male students began the tradition to protest coeducation. A third account claims the '70s streaking craze simply took hold at Princeton.

Whichever story is true, most students only know the mythology attached to the former tradition.

Finding a safe way to regulate the Nude Olympics is unlikely. No argument could revive the Nude Olympics, administrators said.