Tufts students run naked as part of tradition

Tufts students continued a tradition more than two decades old as they ran through the quad naked on Monday night.

Celebrating the end of classes, Tufts University students let off steam by screaming and running through campus at the annual Tufts Naked Quad Run on Dec. 11 this year.

Some sported body paint, some wore costumes, but most streaked by in just their birthday suits.

Neil DiBiase, a sophomore who volunteered at the event last year, ran naked this time so he could experience the Tufts tradition.

“A lot of people see it as a bunch of kids running naked but it’s really a community-building event and more kids hang out there with their friends than those running naked,” he said. “It’s a good community event before the end of the semester.”

It’s hard to say how many ran as it was a quick event, said sophomore London Moore, one of the Student Senate organizers of the event this year.

 “I didn’t run and I don’t know if I would run it,” she said. “Making it really safe has been my main concern this year.”

In previous years the run has caused the university much consternation with one dean threatening to cancel it altogether given the health and safety hazards it posed after several student injuries and cases of alcohol abuse.

Students support the event as one that brings the entire student body together and that the university should not prohibit or try to alter the nature of the Naked Quad Run.

“It went very well this year. Because of the weather, people ran longer,” Moore said. “I think it’s a tradition that has been around longer than I have been and that’s important.”

One of Tufts’ more notorious traditions, the run takes place on the first night of the fall semester reading period, at night, and usually on alcohol. Students run naked from the back door of West Hall, around the Residential Quad, and return to West. DiBiase said he only ran for about 15 minutes but others ran for about 30.

The run began in 1975, when male students streaked across campus in protest against plans to make Tufts housing coed. Females began running in 1987, when West Hall became the last dorm to be made coed.