Tunnel tours to cease for now

The haunted tunnel tours given by the Honors Association that have been occurring for eight years have been cancelled this year due to safety reasons.

Pete Jensen, director of the University Police Department, said the cancellation of the tours had to do with entry and confined spaces.

“Between the policy change and the safety of our students, we opted not to,” Jensen said.

Freshman Michelle Corio, president of the Honors Association said the Honors Association is definitely disappointed the tunnels didn’t work out, but they planned a new event in place of the tours.

“(The Honors Association had) a Halloween bowling party,” Corio said “We had good

membership that came up with a new off.”

Hackemer said the tours were very popular in the past.

“We always had more than 100 students come on the tours,” Hackemer said.

Hackemer said the Honors Association isn’t too upset about the tours being cancelled.

“They were certainly disappointed, but to some degree understanding,” Hackemer said.

Corio said they had tried contacting the University Police Department for a few weeks and didn’t find out the tours were cancelled until almost the second week of October.

“We had planned all of September to be doing the tours, but (UPD) took a while in responding because they had some new people in positions,” Corio said.

Corio said it took a while to find the right people to talk to.

“They wanted to wait to give us a definite answer,” Corio said. “After their meeting, they came back with this consensus and by this time it was already Oct. it.”

Corio said the Honors Association spoke with Jensen from UPD, who spoke with Nate Adams, assistant vice president of Facilities Management about the reasons for cancelling the tours.

Freshman Becky Tobias, an Honors Association member, said she was a little disappointed the tours were cancelled.

“I wanted to see the tunnels since I’ve never seen them,” Tobias said.

Corio said she does not know if tours will be given next year.

“Hopefully we can reinstate the tradition of tunnel tours,” Corio said. “We’ll see how it