Indiana community avoids major trouble during IUPatty's as university curtails frat parties

The 2024 IUPatty’s weekend made it to Sunday morning without any major tumult or serious injuries being reported.

While the annual event is not sanctioned by Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the university told its fraternities and sororities this year to pull the plug on any parties they were hosting by 6 p.m. Saturday.

“This is the first year we have asked them to have their parties ended by 6 p.m.,” said university spokesperson Michelle Fryling. “It’s a new procedure we asked them to follow. We looked at data from last year and some behaviors.

“We hold our students accountable.”

Fryling said similar measures have been enforced at other universities during occasions when large crowds are expected. “It’s not unique to IUP,” she said.

An off-campus party during last year’s celebration ended with 12 people being injured when the lower level of a two-story apartment partially collapsed into a single-story dwelling below it at the Elm by Traverse Commons complex in White Township. Two shootings that occurred off-campus during a 2017 event left one person dead and three injured.

This year, no out-of-control gatherings were reported, according to Fryling, who also serves as the public information officer for the Indiana Area Collaborative Team (I-ACT). The team brings together 19 state, county and local organizations — including IUP police and student groups — with the goal of countering and responding to disruptive gatherings and behavior in the Indiana area.

It was formed following the 2014 IUPatty’s event, when unruly, alcohol-fueled crowds packed Indiana Borough streets and police responded to dozens of calls.

IUP senior Jake Meuschke of Gibsonia believes students who were visiting university fraternities from other colleges probably were confused when they were asked to leave the organizations’ properties Saturday evening.

But, Meuschke, who is vice president of IUP’s Sigma Chi chapter, said, “It went a lot smoother than I thought it would.”

Meuschke has participated in three previous IUPatty’s celebrations. “This one was the smoothest I’ve been to,” he said, noting crowd control usually has been a challenge for the fraternity during IUPatty’s.

“There’s usually just a flood of people,” he said. This year, “We got some additional security to help us, to just maintain everything. We did a good job with crowd control.”

As in past years, state police, including troopers on horseback, beefed up patrols in the Indiana area — adding to the presence of police from the university and Indiana Borough.

“Whenever there are police officers guarding this area, I do feel more comfortable,” Meuschke said.

Volunteer clean-up

Continuing a volunteer effort from previous years, about 400 members of the university’s fraternity and sorority chapters fanned out through the community Sunday morning to pick up litter left behind from the celebration.

Anna Sloan, a junior from California, Pa., joined six fellow members of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority as they collected two bags of trash along a section of Philadelphia Street in downtown Indiana.

” I think we got a lot compared to previous years,” she said. “This year, I feel there were a lot more people here.”

I-ACT reported the following Indiana-area incidents between 7 a.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday:

• IUP police arrested four people, none of whom were students, for violations including theft, public drunkenness, underage drinking and driving under the influence. The university police also: took part in one drug investigation and one theft investigation; made one arrest and issued one citation stemming from traffic stops; responded to two non-reportable vehicle wrecks, two fights and one unwanted person in a residence hall; and answered 26 calls for routine service.

Indiana Borough police confirmed the effectiveness of fraternities in controlling their gatherings along Rice Avenue. “Their student-to-student engagement lessened the need for police-to-student engagement in that area,” police stated.

• Borough police answered 77 calls and filed the following charges: four for public drunkenness; two each for retail theft and underage drinking; one each for disorderly gathering and public urination; and one for driving under the influence, with a related firearms offense.

• State police made two arrests each for driving under the influence and public drunkenness and one for drug possession.

• Citizens’ Ambulance Service responded to three calls at residence halls, one at a fitness center and four others related to fights and alcohol use in areas around campus.