At Yale, A Place To Stay For Frosh

Harvard freshmen without friends at Yale won’t have to sleep on a park bench during this year’s Harvard-Yale weekend.

While the upperclassmen Houses have always been paired with residential colleges at Yale, this year, for the first time, freshmen dorms will also be paired with upperclass Houses and their respective Yale sister colleges, according to Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67.

Because Yale’s residential college system includes freshmen, Dingman said adding Harvard first years to the mix makes sense. Prior to the change, freshmen had to rely on social networks to find a place to sleep.

Under the new system, freshmen can have a place at a tailgate and can unfurl their sleeping bags in the common rooms of their sister colleges.

The new associations are part of a series of measures in which the College administration hopes to increase its involvement in the Harvard-Yale festivities.

At last year’s Game, for the first time, the College hosted a regulated and centralized tailgate for students of both Universities on Ohiri field, near Harvard’s football stadium.

In addition to encouraging freshmen to party with their upperclassmen peers at the tailgates, the College is also planning to publish an activities guide for the weekend in New Haven and hopes to have a large pep-rally in Cambridge during the week leading up to The Game, Campus Life Fellow Justin H. Haan ’05 said.

“[The guide] would basically, as I understand it now, be all encompassing, from concerts to club parties being thrown at New Haven clubs and bars which I know is something a couple of Harvard students are working on,” Haan said.

According to Haan, House Committees (HoCos) have been receptive to the idea of incorporating freshmen into their tailgating festivities.

“At some point this week we’re going to encourage HoCos to directly contact freshmen dorms through the freshmen dorm lists to make sure they know their tailgates are available to them,” Haan said.

In addition to welcoming freshmen, the HoCos are banding together to save money on truck rentals and liquor supplies.

“We all realized that we wanted the same things and pooling our resources would be a lot more efficient and cost-beneficial,” Adams House HoCo Co-Chair Kangni “Connie” Zong ’06 wrote in an e-mail.

Haan estimated that the savings per HoCo would total about $150 but also said that the collaboration would ensure that the HoCos are able to follow all alcohol transportation laws by purchasing from a distributor in New Haven.

“Given the budget HoCos are working with, that’s $150 that can be put to better use,” Haan said.

This year’s increased involvement by Harvard College comes as Yale tightens the reins on the weekend’s revelry.

Last week, Yale announced that on-campus parties with more than 20 students will be prohibited the night before The Game by edict of the Yale Council of Masters. The masters cited concerns about property damage as the reason for the new measures. Additionally, Yale announced that new tailgate rules will be in effect for this year’s game day, ending the tailgates at the end of halftime and banning drinking games.

An alcohol-free dance party hosted by the student council is planned for Yale’s central dining hall—The Commons.

—Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at jprogers@fas.harvard.edu