Tufts Daily

Issue date: 12/10/07 Section: Features

This year's Nighttime Quad Reception (NQR) will take place tonight. Over the years, the NQR has evolved from a small, unorganized run to the event it is today.

As the semester comes to a close and students get ready to take off for winter break, they may first find themselves taking off something else: their clothing.

Every student - even the purest, most innocent freshman - has heard of Tufts' Naked Quad Run, known by university officials as the Nighttime Quad Reception (NQR).

But the origins of this unique event are less ubiquitous, full of rumor and often disputed among students.

One common story is that the event began as a protest against co-ed dormitories.

"I've heard different rumors. One was that it started when West Hall was all single sex and was becoming coed, but I don't know if that's just a myth that's been created," senior Katie Winter said.

But according to alumni and officials who were at Tufts when the tradition began, its origins are far less concrete. TUPD Sergeant Robert McCarthy, who has worked at Tufts for 35 years, said that the first Naked Quad Run had nothing to do with dorm policy.

"How that came out, I have no idea. It started a long time before West Hall even thought of becoming coed," he said.

Alumnus Seth Ammerman (A '76) remembered participating in an early Naked Quad Run in 1973.

"Streaking had been going on sporadically for a number of years at colleges around the country but with individuals or small groups," he said. "This was the first one at Tufts that was organized with hundreds and hundreds of people and coed, which was great, of course."

Ammerman said that although some of the runners were motivated by various causes, the primary reason for organizing the run was to provide an entertaining outlet for various forms of stress.

"To tweak authority, some people said that they were protesting different things, and that was picked up by the media or the [campus media] or the administration - for peace, or against war or changes going on at the university; things like dorm changes ... but really those were not the main reasons why people were doing it," he said. "It was just to get together and do something fun and bond."

McCarthy remembered various groups streaking in the '70s, but said that the Naked Quad Run in its current form as a release from exam nerves began in the early '80s.

Continued...

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