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The Dartmouth
March 28, 2024 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Assembly pushes party packs

The Student Assembly passed a resolution Tuesday night urging the College to fully fund the party pack program, which provides pizza for registered parties on campus, and allocating temporary support for the initiative.

The Assembly also heard from members of the Gay-Straight Alliance, who issued an official statement about the Reserves Officers' Training Corps program on campus.

The party pack program, which consists of pizzas and nonalcoholic beverages delivered to registered fraternity parties, was established in an attempt to make parties more inclusive for people who do not consume alcohol as well as safer for those who do.

The Student Activities Office, which created the program, originally paid for party packs during a staff vacancy, but the Office can no longer afford to fund the food delivery.

The resolution's sponsors, Adam Patinkin '07, Karan Danthi '07 and Noah Riner '06, called for the Assembly to allocate $2,750 of its budget to help fund the part of the program that administrators can no longer afford.

The Student Activities Office, the Office of Student Life and the Dean of the College currently fund only two thirds of the projected party packs budget for the 2005-2006 fiscal year.

Safety and Security walk-through data indicate that there are approximately 150 registered parties each year. Each party pack costs about $160, although the size of the packs vary based on the size of the party and the amount of alcohol permitted.

The resolution's sponsors said they did not want the Assembly to co-sponsor the program in the future but rather to allocate funds along with the Programming Board and the Greek Leadership Council for this fiscal year only.

The Assembly plans to urge the Undergraduate Finance Committee, which allocates student activities funds to the Assembly, Programming Board and the Council on Student Organizations, to fully fund the program in the future.

Party packs have gained widespread popularity across campus since their inception last year.

"I love party packs," Pete Cohn '09 said. "There's nothing better than stumbling through a frat only to find mountains of free pizza and breadsticks."

Some students are skeptical, however, about whether the program actually makes parties safer for students consuming alcohol.

"One of my friends ended up passing out in a tree and getting picked up by Safety and Security anyway," Nathan Niparko '09 said. "But I'm sure the party pack made the experience more enjoyable."

The Assembly also heard an official statement by the Gay-Straight Alliance, whose co-chairs, John Brown '08 and Sean Garren '07, said the organization should not support the existence of the ROTC because of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which tacitly allows gays to enlist while discharging those who are openly gay.

"If the College is in any way sponsoring [ROTC], then that is giving a very bad image of our college and projecting a very bad image on our students," Brown said.