Saturday I had the pleasure of tailgating and going to the GT vs. Notre Dame “Football” Game (in quotes because it wasn’t a particularly good one). I didn’t go to a large Division 1 school with a large atheletic following, so the whole tailgating starting at 8 in the morning for an 8 in the evening game is kind of foreign to me, but I’ve tailgated before – my department does it before every game – but only on those occassions when Tech plays a Thursday night game and I’m just sticking around from having worked in the lab all day. So Saturday was quite and experience for me. People EVERYWHERE on campus, throwing footballs, grilling, drinking beer, etc. The whole event was very… well… male. IT was a fun time and a very carnival atmosphere.

But the aftermath and mess left on campus is actually horrid about the whole thing. I’m working on my dissertation, so I pretty much work all the time now and when I drove in Sunday morning the campus was littered with litter and generally looking in just about the worst shape I’ve ever seen it. I figured, that’s okay, it’s the morning after and they just haven’t had time to clean up yet. When I left Sunday afternoon, no effort had been made to clean up. I was at a party last night over by Tech, so I cut through campus (it was shorter) and saw that, still, no attempt had been made to clean up at all. This morning, as I drove in, I had my camera with me.

The first picture is from right outside the baseball stadium (sorry for the slight blur)

While this area could be written off as it’s the weekend and Labor day and the custodial staff simply hasn’t gotten around to cleaning it up, he second one can’t.

You’ll notice that the Georgia Tech Pikes don’t seem to care that much about their appearance or the appearance of their school. You’ll also notice that they were never taught to clean up after themselves. If they did, Sunday would have been spent cleaning it up. With the number of brothers that they have, this would have been an easy task. It’s Labor Day and most places on campus are closed, so the best that can be done is hope that the fraternity develops some sense of decency and care about how its school (and front lawn) looks or that the administration pressures them to clean up after themselves and encourage them next time to, you know, actually care about the cleanliness of their school while they are enjoying the tailgating experience.

[Update 9:04 pm] I drove by leaving campus today and it had been cleaned up, but the trash bags were still in the yard.