Outgoing Tufts President Larry Bacow announced in an op-ed in the student newspaper, the Tufts Daily that he was going to end the school’s Naked Quad Run, a Tufts tradition that dates from the 1970s.
NQR occurs just before fall finals, in which (usually drunk) students take off their cloths and rush across the school’s quadrangle.
According to Bacow, he tried to make the event safer, but he just couldn’t do it:
If I thought… [safety] measures might render the Naked Quad Run safe, I would consider them. But as the Daily has also observed, alcohol fuels NQR. Most students say that they require it in order to fortify themselves to shed their inhibitions and run in subfreezing conditions. Given that we can no longer manage the run, we cannot allow this “tradition” to continue. Even if I did not act now, NQR would end some day. The only question is whether a student has to die first. We cannot allow this to happen, and the Naked Quad Run will not continue.
The only question is whether a student has to die first? Is death really likely to occur in the Naked Quad Run? It’s not like it’s the naked hydraulic acid swim or the naked bonfire wrestle.
Note that the NQR will not, of course, automatically stop now. Bacow, who will be stepping down as president of Tufts in June 2011, is indicating only that he would prefer that Tufts no longer sanction the event, which involves lots of major and minor violations to Tufts rules and Massachusetts laws, if it occurs again in December. [Image via]
