Penn has banned daytime parties at Homecoming — a decision the University attributes to new event policies.

The change will go into effect on November 16, the day of the Homecoming football game against Harvard. The reunion weekend, scheduled this year from November 15 to 17, is a widely anticipated celebration that welcomes alumni to campus and features university pride celebrations, including a football game. Students have always marked football game day with daytime parties hosted by Greek organizations on and around campus.

Under the new policies, which Penn said were introduced last year and known as the Major Events Weekend Protocols, events cannot overlap with official Homecoming activities, the Division of Homecoming wrote college life at Penn in a statement to the Daily Pennsylvanian.

The Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life did not respond to a request for comment.

“During these weekends, the Community Care team, in conjunction with DPS and other campus partners, implements additional event registration protocols to ensure adequate support and security staff are available to serve the Penn community,” said a University Life spokesperson.

Outlining major events weekend protocols, the spokesperson said: “Undergraduate student group events must take place on Saturday evenings during Homecoming weekend to avoid any overlap with official activities University reunions planned on campus throughout the weekend.

Penn defines a Major Events Weekend as one where there has historically been “a significant increase in events and social activity”. The University is implementing additional parameters these weekends, including a mandate that undergraduate social events must take place during designated time slots to “ensure that sufficient support and security staff are available “.

Penn’s event registration policies Require student organizations to register all events containing alcohol, regardless of where the event will take place. According to the University Life website, the last days to submit registrations for alcohol-related events for Homecoming weekend are October 31 and November 1.

Several fraternity members expressed frustration with the new policy and alleged a lack of transparency on Penn’s part in interviews with the DP. The students, who were granted anonymity after citing fear of retaliation by the university, claimed Penn banned day party registrations to encourage students to attend a tailgate sponsored by the university at Penn Park, marking 175 years of fraternity and sorority life at Penn.

The university-sponsored tailgate is free for students under 21, but costs up to $20 per ticket for general admission with an alcohol wristband.

Young engineer Aditya Sirohi, who is the social chairman of Beta Theta Pi, told the DP that the OFSL stopped them from recording events before 7 p.m. on Homecoming — and added that after 7 p.m., only six fraternities approximately are allowed to register due to capacity restrictions.

A fraternity president said the university has not issued any written communication about the policy change and said he became aware of the change when his fraternity’s social president was unable to register an event on reunion day.

The president said that during a September 4 meeting with OFSL Greek Life Presidents and trustees, they raised the apparent technical difficulty to fraternity and sorority life coordinator Jennifer Probert, who then informed attendees of the policy change.

“It ended in 20 minutes of presidents, mostly Panhellenic and (of the Greek Intercultural Council), saying to each other, ‘What the hell?’ “, declared the president.

Although Probert was the administrator who broke the news, the fraternity president added that he was made “very clear” during the meeting “that this decision was not on their side.”

“(T)his is something that was forced on them by the school, and it seems like they have very little say in it,” the president said.

At the September 4 meeting, there was a “civil” and “productive” conversation about allowing groups to register parties from 4 p.m., rather than 7 p.m., the president added . Although they said the topic was not discussed as much at the October presidents’ meeting and no changes were made, “it seemed like they were trying to cut down the time until the end of the football match.

Still, some people involved in Greek life believe the move is a “cash grab,” the president said, given that alumni must pay to attend the University-sponsored tailgate. Their main gripe, however, was what they described as uneven regulation of off-campus organizations.

Penn is home to several off-campus groups which operate similarly to fraternities and sororities on campus. Because Penn cannot prevent off-campus groups from throwing parties before 7 p.m. during Homecoming, there is a disadvantage for registered fraternities, the president said — a disparity that was brought up at the meeting of september.

“(The University) said they had no control over this, which I think made us very upset,” the president said. “…Organizations that are not regulated at all – and that people sometimes worry about because they are unregulated in any way, shape or form – have the privilege of doing this at reunions, and the rest of the fraternities and sororities do not.

A second fraternity president told the DP that people who voiced concerns at the OFSL’s September meeting “kind of got in trouble” because of the perceived tone of their complaints, saying they had not attended a meeting where administrators were open to hearing suggestions from fraternity leaders. .

“(Administrators) kind of have all the power in the situation,” they said. “Everyone there is walking on thin ice. »

The second president added, “It’s like they have this attitude of, ‘We’re going to try this year no matter what, and if it’s bad, we’re not going to do it next year.'”

Many groups are now considering holding off-campus events on Homecoming Day to “try to fill the void,” the president said. But they remain disappointed by the decision to ban daytime events because many of the fraternity’s alumni are now unable to come to campus. .

“Everyone I talked to was really depressed, because there isn’t a lot of school spirit at Penn, and it seems like homecoming is one of the only days where everyone dresses up and dating,” they said. I felt like they kind of took away that sense of community.

They also criticized the University-sponsored portal, saying it is not “for everyone” and does not “reflect that type of community.”

“Students want to drink, and this is the event you can only drink at if you are over 21,” they said.

A former president of another fraternity wrote to the PD that he felt more neutral about the change.

“I certainly understand people’s frustrations, but I also understand the OFSL’s decision,” they said. “On the one hand, Friday is a normal registration day, so if people really want to have (parties), they can do it then. Students always say they wish we had more of a football culture and more school spirit, but they don’t really want to show up to the big games or do anything to promote that spirit.

While saying the OFSL’s solution is not “perfect,” they also recognized the value of prohibiting fraternities from recording events that conflict with the game.

“If people actually decided to join and come to the tailgate with all their friends and alumni, I think it could definitely be a fun event – ​​although it might not be as fun as some of the reunion events that people attended. over the past years,” they added. “It would still be a step in the right direction to get more of that football culture.”

Senior journalists Emily Scolnick And Vidya Pandiaraju and staff journalists Kelly Yang, Nicolas Maharaj, Theo GreenfieldAnd Naija Agarwal contributed reporting to this article.