The revamped Wolfpack In the House Program took effect for the first time at Saturday’s football game, soliciting varied reactions.
WITH, which student leaders and administrators developed to create better sportsmanship at games, is a program where volunteers pass out stickers, souvenirs and directions before football games.
Student Body President Bobby Mills, who took a leading role in the initiative, said he only volunteered for a couple of hours Saturday because Transportation messed up the timings for the Red Terror Transit, and he had to drive students back and forth from the game.
“I was walking around passing stuff out, and people were asking questions,” he said.
Mills said, from what he saw though, he thought it was successful.
“People love free stuff,” he said.
According to Mills, people usually volunteer for about three hours before games.
Student Senate President Greg Doucette said some people contacted him with concerns about the WITH program, including anxieties that the WITH ambassadors seemed to be there to police the students with their cameras, which some took as a surveillance measure.
Doucette said rather than being “goodwill ambassadors,” some students took them to be “snitches” for Campus Police.
Mills, on the other hand, said he did not hear similar concerns.
During a University Council meeting last week, Doucette said Associate Athletics Director Dick Christy addressed this concern before WITH took off and said the perception of WITH ambassadors being out in the lots to get people in trouble was a false perception.
“I strongly hope Athletics is going to take the Central Florida game as a learning experience and either improve WITH so that the student body doesn’t feel like WITH is a program [serving] as a cover for Big Brother, or abandon the program,” Doucette said.
According to Doucette, the Senate Campus Community Committee was going to meet to try and address students’ concerns.
Tom Stafford, vice chancellor for student affairs, said he tried to help the WITH ambassadors in any way he could and observe how the program would go.
“I thought it went very well,” he said. “I was very pleased with it.”
According to Public Safety Supervisor Sgt. Kelly Rosser, 30 people received citations for alcohol violations or disorderly conduct, 29 of whom police removed from Carter-Finley Stadium, with one arrest.
Capt. Jon Barnwell said during the first game, police officers have a zero-tolerance policy to set the standard for future games and it is hard to tell whether or not WITH was helping lower that rate yet.
“It being the first game, it’s always hard the first game, because we have a lot of people seeing how far they can push the rules,” he said.
According to Stafford, although one of the primary objectives of the WITH program is to reduce alcohol and conduct infractions, he said the University would just have to wait and see if those statistics are reduced.
“Police have more of an impact on that,” he said.
