Select members of the Paternoville Coordination Committee (PCC) on Tuesday hosted their first meeting of the academic year with university officials to discuss recent events and the future of the campsite.
Because of Paternoville campers' good behavior at the Notre Dame campout, the university is granting one more extended campout, PCC President Tom Boroch (sophomore-meteorology) said.
"The campout will either be for the Wisconsin or the Ohio State game," Boroch said. "Those are the two home games that are left on the schedule, and the final decision would be made in early- to mid-October."
Boroch said that the extended camp-out would start at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
PCC's president, vice president and two other senior members met with two university employees from the athletic department, one from the ticket office, one from risk management and another from police services.
PCC vice president Chris Grassi (junior-supply chain and information systems), who attended the meeting, would not release the names of the officials.
Grassi said that several different topics were tackled at the meeting, including past games, a size limit, how to deal with inclement weather and the accessibility of emergency medical services.
An actual limit on tents would not be set, Grassi said, but sheer physical space and boundaries set for the space restrict the amount of people who can camp out each week.
"It's not like you can't have more than 80 tents," Grassi said. "It's a geographic limit. You can only put so much in this geographic area."
Boroch agreed that it's not a new regulation, just one of the things they discussed.
"At the Notre Dame game there were 130 tents come Friday night, and the last row of tents were almost on the sidewalk," Boroch said, "so the 130 tents that were there last Friday were the maximum number of tents that could be set up at any particular campout."
Boroch said that the university officials at the meeting brought up the idea of creating an aisle down the middle of the tents in case emergency medical personnel would need to get to students and also to create a space were trashcans could be placed.
In case of inclement weather, the university would make the students leave Paternoville; however, the possibility of passing out wristbands to campers to reserve their spots, only on a Friday, was brought up at the meeting as well, Grassi said.
"If the temperature drops below freezing or there's an electrical storm, the university will make us leave," Grassi said. "[The university] will never, under any other circumstance, ever guarantee us our seats."
Grassi said university officials were pleased at this meeting, which was a far cry from last year's meeting after the Michigan game that consisted of "basically reading the police reports from the weekend," Grassi said.
Mike Poorman, PCC faculty adviser, said that two words came out of the meeting: collaboration and support.
"I think it's a credit to Penn State that they're not trying to tell students everything that they should be doing," Poorman said. "They really want to see it succeed."
Boroch said he wanted to congratulate the campers for their good behavior at the Notre Dame campout last week.
"I congratulate all the students out there for acting responsible and representing our school in a positive way," he said, "so I thank everyone for that."
For a complete list of rules and regulations as well as other news about PCC, Grassi said to check the PCC's Web site at clubs.psu.edu/up/paternoville.
