Tenting for basketball games in Krzyzewskiville may span less time in the future, under several options that administrators and some student leaders are considering.
Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, said he asked line monitors and tenters to brainstorm ways to shorten the window during which students camp in Krzyzewskiville, the annual tent city.
"I think it's got to be shorter," he said. "We've heard from students that it goes on way too long."
Moneta and the outgoing head line monitor, Jeremy Morgan, have been considering changes to the Duke tradition since February, and Morgan will seek input from current line monitors over the next couple of weeks. Morgan said he would hold a Krzyzewskiville town meeting early in April--after a new head line monitor is selected by incoming Duke Student Government president Matthew Slovik--to solicit student opinion.
"I want to lay some sort of groundwork for talking about K-ville in general," said Morgan, a senior. "A six- or seven-week long tenting season might have been a little too long this year."
Students started tenting before the spring semester began and continued through the home game against the University of Maryland Feb. 19, battling one of the area's nastier winters in years. In January and February, undergraduates sleep, study and live in makeshift tents in order to procure the best seats in Cameron Indoor Stadium when the men's basketball team faces some of its most storied opponents in the historic venue.
"The problem [the long tenting period] creates is that it discourages the casual Cameron Crazie from tenting," said junior Donald Wine, who is a candidate for head line monitor next year.
Morgan said low attendance this year--including uncharacteristically unfilled student seats at times--was in part due to casual fans' expectations that tenters would claim all the seats or that they would have to line up the night before.
"Some students like to tent for the sake of tenting, and that's great, but from the line monitor's standpoint, it's more important to get the stands filled," he said.
He added that in past years and likely next year, the schedule would fall in such a way that allows a break between the two games designated as tenting games.
Either way, Moneta said he would like to see tenting's competitive spirit harnessed into a new tradition--such as a kickoff event. He hoped a new twist on K-ville could be ready for next year's tenters.
"I don't in any way want to tinker with the spirit of K-ville," Moneta said. "I'm always looking for new rituals that everyone would like to enjoy."
Among the ideas Moneta offered were to have a K-ville concert kickoff, as well as a "spirit competition" or some sort of student olympics to determine who gets the highest placement for seats.
"It could be limited to a day. We could get Dick Vitale to come here and judge it," Moneta suggested.
Morgan said because DSG's constitution demands the head line monitor present the tenting policy in September, any major changes should be determined now to allow for student input.
"It may be the case that people like being out there for six or seven weeks," he said. "So if that's the case, that's the case, and maybe we don't need the changes."
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