Dillo Day is the only time of year when Northwestern resembles a state school.

But what happens if someone gets hurt or arrested?

The Dillo Day task force, a consortium of students and administrators that aims to make Dillo Day fun and safe, is running a series of public-service ads in The Daily and is implementing other preventative measures to make sure students don’t get hurt, said Mary Desler, dean of students and the chairwoman of the task force.

The goal is simple: “To make Dillo Day 2005 as safe as possible,” Desler said.

But the task force, which is in its second year, won’t tell students that they shouldn’t drink. It instead will inform about university policies and tell them where to seek medical attention, said Douglas Singer, co-chairman of Mayfest, the student organization in charge of Dillo Day.

“I don’t think the task force is telling students not to drink when at least a quarter of this campus is of legal age,” said Singer, a Weinberg junior. “The task force understands what Dillo Day is.”

After 10 students ended up in the Evanston Hospital emergency room during Dillo Day 2003, administrators decided to form the task force, said Ken Papineau, director of health education. Papineau said Dillo Day 2003 worried university officials both “in the number of incidents that occurred and the degree of seriousness.”

Papineau, who serves as an adviser to the task force, said the ads — called “Dillo Day: Keep it safe” — warn students of university policies and encourage them to think about the consequences of their actions.

“If a student is more knowledgeable about how to take care of themselves or someone they know or happen to intercept, and if they know about university processes and local ordinances, then at the very least they can make an informed decision,” Papineau said.

The ads will run once or twice a week until Dillo Day, Papineau said. Each ad will be sponsored by a different department, and will contain different facts, but the format will stay the same.

Three ads have already run, warning students about the risk of sexual assault and the effect a criminal record has on graduate school admissions.

McCormick senior Aarti Rupani said she has seen the ads, and is happy the administration is concerned for student safety.

“If you’re a freshman, it gets you thinking what Dillo Day is and it gets you planning and knowing what your limits are,” Rupani said.

Aside from the ads, the task force is trying to make the lakefront as appealing as possible with a variety of “interesting” ethnic foods, a jewelry vendor and an interactive Apple computer booth, Desler said.

She added that the Panhellenic Association, the Residence Hall Association and the Residential College Board will provide free bagels in the Sorority Quads starting at 10 a.m. “as an alternative to students drinking in the morning.”

Associated Student Government President Patrick Keenan-Devlin said he hopes the extra $7,000 that Mayfest secured from the Student Activities Finance Board on Wednesday will help bring an exciting headliner and keep students at the Lakefill. Keenan-Devlin, a Music junior, said he will spend Dillo Day collecting trash around campus.

The task force helped make Dillo Day 2004 safer and more successful than the previous year’s celebration, Desler said.

She described her ideal Dillo Day as “hundreds of people on the lakefront, good bands, people sitting in the sun eating great food and talking to people they don’t know … and they are sober.

“But that’s a perspective of a 58-year-old woman,” she said.
Reach Julia Neyman at [email protected].