University of Nebraska-Lincoln officials have employed a new approach in their efforts to keep student parties from getting out of hand: Have students register them in advance.
Linda Major, who is UNL's assistant to the vice chancellor for student affairs, admits the effort is an exercise in trust for students who register.
But Major, who has worked on alcohol issues for the university for 22 years, has assurances from Lincoln police that registered parties will only be known to a 911 dispatcher.
"Street officers aren’t using it to run down parties," she said.
The registration effort comes in response to a problematic party trend of one-day rentals that swept through the North Bottoms neighborhood, just north of UNL's City Campus, the last couple years, Major said.
UNL students would rent backyards of tenants in the neighborhood and throw massive parties, police officials said. In some cases, police had trouble tracking down and holding accountable the party host.
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Modeled after a program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, UNL's party registration is aimed at providing party hosts an opportunity to receive a warning and give them a 20-minute window to voluntarily terminate a party after police receive a noise complaint, Major said.
"That's the way things have operated for at least 30 years," said Lincoln Police Capt. Anthony Butler, describing police response to party calls.
Officers respond and warn the host, allow them to shut down their party or allow police to help, he said.
If police are asked to respond again, officers end the party, Butler said.
But if officers called to a party the first time see misdemeanor law violations, they can break up the gathering immediately, he said.
Major said the registration "just formalized something LPD already does," and noted registration doesn't shield students from any legal consequences arising from their party.Â
It also gives police information on who is responsible for the party, she said.
For the first three Husker football games this fall, seven parties with six hosts have registered with the university, and students have been "very cooperative," Major said.
To register their party, students must be 19 years old, show they live at the address and agree not to rent the property to a student group, which was the problem seen with one-day rental parties, she said.
More than two-thirds of the university's 26,000 students live off-campus, and most parties students throw don't get into trouble, she said.
University officials hope this can help educate students on having a plan for their party to , she said.
For years, some UNL students had partied at the Indian Center at 10th Street and Military Road, before a wild crowd drinking before the Miami-Nebraska game in 2014 led the popular spot to ban alcohol.Â
Since then, Major said, students that had gone there filtered elsewhere into the North Bottoms neighborhood and the university struggled to find the "right and best response."
This year, police were called to only one large backyard party, Butler said, and when officers arrived, the tenant was the one who decided to end it.
"We’re not seeing the issues anywhere near the levels they were last year and the season before, so hopefully the message is getting out there," Butler said.