By Gloria Falach
TAMPA, Fla.– With the annual Gasparilla Parade coming up on Jan. 25, the city of Tampa and Campus Safety at The University of Tampa (UTampa) are ensuring the safety of all students on campus.
The tradition of Tampa’s Gasparilla invasion has been invading Tampa Bay since 1904 and celebrates the life of the fictional Jose Gaspar and the revelry of his legion of pirates, according to GasparillaHistory.com. The parade travels through Bayshore Boulevard and Downtown Tampa.
On the day of Gasparilla, the UTampa campus will be locked down by campus safety with barriers. This ensures that only students, faculty, family and friends are allowed back on campus.
“Every campus safety officer will be working that day, around 35 campus safety officers including supervisors and directors,” Frederick Quichocho, Campus Safety Assistant Supervisor said. “To include the presence of the Tampa police department on campus and a private security company that assists us during this big city event.”
Campus Safety officers know this is a holiday that students participate in, but students are given warnings about what they need to be aware of while they are leaving campus to celebrate.
“We have to emphasize that you are a UTampa student both on campus and off campus,” said Quichocho. “If you get in trouble [off campus] it will come back and haunt you here. We have a good working relationship with the Tampa Police Department, so before they do anything criminally with a student they will send it back to us and have us deal with the issue in-house first.”
Residence Life on the UTampa campus will require all Resident Assistants (RAs) to warn and remind their residents living on the campus of the policies that must be followed.
“[All RAs] had a training specifically for the day of Gasparilla,” said sophomore resident assistant Vir Shah. “I had a floor meeting earlier this week with my residents in Austin, and I clarified the alcohol and noise policy with them.”
Residence Life said they want to make sure all students are safe by staying with a group of friends they trust.
Both the state of Florida and UTampa follow the amnesty policy to make students feel more comfortable about getting their friends help when they need it.
“[I told my residents] It’s better to make the call and risk getting in quote-on-quote trouble than to let your friend get hurt because someone made a bad decision,” said sophomore resident assistant Kaitlyn D’Amico. “We are college students. Everyone is going to go out and experience Gasparilla and it is important that we remember to keep each other safe.”
Alcoholic beverages are strictly prohibited on the UTampa campus.
Borgs, typically made with gallon water jugs filled with hard alcohol to make a mixed drink, were seen frequently last Gasparilla. Campus safety officers and Resident Assistants are trained and required to report students if they see a borg both on campus and in dorm buildings no matter what is inside it.
“Some students who have religious and medical preferences and are of age choose to put water or juice in a borg and carry it around,” said D’Amico. “Those students still get cited because we don’t know what’s in it. If it looks specious we have to report it in any situation. So it’s better to just stick with something a little bit more conservative and put water in a water bottle.”
Campus Safety said their number one job is to ensure the safety of all students and guests on campus. They will have all hands on deck the day of Gasparilla.
“A lot of us have kids that are college-aged and we wanna make sure when students’ parents trust their safety and well-being with us and we treat it like it was our kids, said Quichocho. “We take care of our kids here.”
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Photo by Leah Burdick.