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UCLA still stripped of Undie Run

By Sarah Ravani

May 23, 2010 9:00 p.m.

Negotiations with the administration to bring back a university-sanctioned Undie Run for students were halted last week because of safety and liability concerns.

The plan proposed by former Undergraduate Students Association Council officers Addison Huddy and Timothy Mullins included a half-mile run on the Intramural Field and a Red Bull sponsorship that would provide students with merchandise and music. Huddy and Mullins said they planned to keep the event open strictly to UCLA students by requiring students to show their Bruin card before entering the event.

According to Mullins, he and Huddy began meeting with administrators early in fall quarter to discuss the reasons for the cancellation of Undie Run, which included safety, liability, the presence of outsiders on campus and their correlation to an increase in crimes.

During fifth week this quarter, Huddy and Mullins presented their new proposal to the general administration, university police, the Central Ticket Office and the UCLA legal department.

“Things were looking promising because a number of people wanted to meet with us and work things through,” said Mullins, former USAC Facilities Commissioner and a fourth-year mechanical engineering student.

Administrators and police were concerned the event would reach 10,000 people, which would make crowd regulation difficult because of the construction of Pauley Pavilion and the limited number of exits available, Mullins said.

“We were still dealing with a lot of the same problems that we were addressing with the unsanctioned Undie Run,” said Robert Naples, dean of students.

If the event were limited to 2,000 people, this could result in a second unsanctioned Undie Run by the students who can’t get into the UCLA event, which would double the liability risks, Naples said.

“In my mind, the closing of Pauley wouldn’t make the event impossible,” said Matthew Austin, creator of the Facebook group UCLA’s Underground Undie Run and a third-year communication studies student.

“I think it was an excuse or at least a scapegoat for maybe bigger underlying issues, mainly liability.”

According to university police spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein, UCPD is discussing how to prepare for another “underground” Undie Run, as the spring event is generally the most-attended run of the school year.

Austin, who has attended the underground undie runs for the last two quarters, said he hopes UCPD will take the same approach as last quarter and spoke of a mutual respect between officers and students. Last quarter, when students came out, the police were less hostile toward them than in fall quarter, Austin added.

“We are back to square one where it looks like the administration is simply going to just cancel Undie Run,” Austin said.

Naples said he still encourages students to work with student government to come up with a feasible plan for next year and added that the plan this year was unapproved because students did not have enough time to develop a plan that would have fewer liability problems.

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