Residence Life is stepping up efforts to increase awareness about the Mifflin Streak.
Faculty, students, resident assistants and staff from all the dorm areas, as well as representatives from interest houses and sororities were invited to participate in four discussions about the traditional finals-week streak last week.
The streak usually involves groups of men running from dorm to dorm shouting for female residents to disrobe in the windows -- some men "streak." Groups of women also run from dorm to dorm encouraging men to disrobe.
The meetings were intended to generate ideas about how to minimize streak activity and to educate the people who came, said Dane Foust, assistant to the director of Residence Life.
"We didn't want to be preaching to the converted," Foust said. "We invited people who we had no idea how they felt about it."
But Foust noted that although many of the 140 people invited to the meetings were faculty members, none came.
"To be honest, I was disappointed," he said.
Although the meetings produced several new ideas, the efforts by Residence Life and University Police Services to counter the streak will be much the same as last year.
Residence Life staff will be stationed in the dorms and outside in the quads, Foust said.
"We'll be targeting people doing things in windows . . . anything that incites the crowd," he said, adding that disruptive people in the crowds will also be referred.
Next year, Residence Life hopes to publish lists of how many people were referred and how they were disciplined so students will be aware of what can happen to streak participants, Foust said.
But one student said efforts by Residence Life and University police will not stop streak activities.
"It's been going on for so long that it's not going to stop," said Eric Matiskella (senior-administration of justice). "It's a tradition."
Matiskella said he thinks the streak is a positive experience because of the tradition and camaraderie involved, adding that people who are offended by it should not participate.
