On April 12, Dean of Students Linda Baughman sent an email to all off-campus students informing them about a torrent of complaints neighbors made the Saturday prior and questioned the idea of “Tommie Pride,” asking students what the term means to them after a weekend of rambunctious partying.

“First, I want to say how genuinely proud I am of our students and our university, and I tried to say that in that email,” Baughman said. “When we have an instance like this where we have so many neighbors negatively impacted by our student behavior, that’s just not that moment of Tommie Pride.”

St. Thomas neighbors, such as Jack Mills and Kate Buckley, say the students’ bad behavior is impacting their living experience.

“Our daughter used to play baseball out in the street or basketball in the alley,” Kate Buckley said. “And that wouldn’t be possible now.”

For 35 years, Mills and Buckley have lived in a house on Dayton Avenue near the St. Thomas’ campus. It’s only relatively recently, however, that they’ve seen a change in the behavior of Tommies in the neighborhood.

“I moved into this neighborhood 35 years ago knowing that the college was here,” Mills said. “It has only been a problem for the past 10 or 12 years.”

Mills and Buckley aren’t the only neighbors living in the area that are increasingly frustrated with their student neighbors. Mills said the problems he and his wife have seen are mainly with noise and behavior that come along with the warm weather.

On Saturday, April 8, for example, temperatures rose as high as 70 degrees and many students took that as an opportunity to go outside and party during the day.

“I started here in June of 2014 and the Tommie-Johnnie scene in the neighborhood that September was something that certain portions of the neighborhood hoped to never see again,” St. Thomas neighborhood liaison Amy Gage said. “And, admittedly, on a smaller and more contained scale, this was more of the same for some neighbors.”

Neighbors called in complaints to Gage, the police and St. Thomas Public Safety that day reporting that students were publicly urinating, playing loud music, being visibly drunk, making a mess in yards, swearing and being disrespectful, according to St. Thomas dean of students Linda Baughman and Assistant Dean Josh Hengemuhle.

“We know that for most of these complaints, it’s an incredibly small percentage of our student body. Probably one-to-two percent that are actually engaging in the most egregious behavior,” Hengemuhle said. “But the community, not just the neighbor living nextdoor, but the neighborhood around us … judge St. Thomas based on that one-to-two percent of behavior. ”

Mills and Buckley noticed a party that was going on that day just a couple houses down from their house on Dayton. It isn’t only rowdy behavior that disturbs them.

“I didn’t see the urinating or the vomiting, which I have seen. I didn’t see the kids running through the yards, which I have seen. But … this was a progressive drunk, very clearly. And that concerns me,” Mills said. “Binge drinking is a real problem.”

What Mills and Buckley saw unfolding is a known St. Thomas senior tradition, Tour de Franzia, where teams of seniors tour between four houses drinking boxed wine.

Amy Gage took it upon herself as the university’s neighborhood liaison to go out and observe what was going on with her own eyes. So, she took her dog on a walk. She described it as “a spring break like atmosphere in a residential neighborhood.”

“We have fine students at this institution,” she said. “And what happened at Tour de Franzia did not represent who I think we really are.”

Mills not only thinks students are at fault, but thinks the university is at fault as well.

“When I saw [Tour de Franzia] happening that Saturday, I just kind of shook my head and was like ‘here we go again.’ They just don’t seem to be catching on,” he said. “When is St. Thomas going to step up to the plate here?”

He said that he witnessed a St. Thomas public safety vehicle drive by the party without confronting any students.

“I think St. Thomas, if doesn’t condone [crazy behavior], just kind of looks the other way,” he said.

On April 20, the university put on a meeting for neighbors to be able to come in and speak about any frustration that they might have about the situation.

“We need to work together to make sure we have respectful behavior in the neighborhood … This isn’t about squashing students’ rights,” Gage said. “Tour de Franzia is a tradition, the case race is a tradition. … So, maybe our challenge to seniors needs to be: work with us. Work with us in making sure that you can have a good time. You can have your party, you can do your tradition, you can dress in your funny costumes… But work with us to do it more respectfully.”

Gage works as the “bridge” for the neighborhood, working with both permanent neighbors and students neighbors as a guide to help them solve any problems they might have.

“This is our community. This is not St. Thomas versus the neighbors,” she said. “Students who live in the neighborhood are neighbors too.”

As for moving forward, Gage knows that there’s a lot of work to do.

“We’re up to it,” she said.

Gamiel Hall can be reached at hall0211@stthomas.edu.