East Lansing is seeing a downturn in partying.

MSU and East Lansing police said Welcome Week celebrations and parties have become increasingly quieter, with fewer arrests and fewer problems.

“It was extremely noticeable,” said MSU Sgt. Matt Merony. “I’ve noticed a decline in the past couple years, but this year has been paramount.”

Merony said this year’s four- to five-day student adjustment period was the tamest he’d seen in his six years with the department.

The department issued fewer citations for minors in possession of alcohol and had fewer arrests, he said.

“We can usually judge ourselves by the way East Lansing is,” he said. “They get busy early, and right around 3 a.m. is when we get busy. I thought there were going to be more problems, but there weren’t.

“It was very calm.”

Biosystems engineering senior Mike Laur said he had seen more intense Welcome Week celebrations in his four years at MSU, where students filled the streets of East Lansing and campus.

But even with the subdued year of welcome parties, he still calls MSU a party school.

“Compared to past Welcome Weeks it was quiet,” he said. “Being a party school you’d expect there would be more going on. Everywhere you’d go this year there would be cops around.”

MSU hasn’t made the cut for the “party school” list in The Princeton Review’s “The Best 331 Colleges” book since appearing as the No. 3 party school in 2000.

Police attribute the change in the party atmosphere to a shortened welcome period, better education about drinking and more activities for new students.

MSU officials shortened the week-long welcome period in 1997.

“The shorter week is probably the biggest contributor,” said East Lansing Lt. Kim Johnson. “It doesn’t take you a week to get your dorm room set up. Students were just bored.”

Johnson said East Lansing increased the number of officers working for Welcome Week nights, bringing the total number to around 24 instead of the usual 10-15.

Saturday was the department’s busiest night, while Wednesday and Thursday night were “empty.”

Although the week wasn’t difficult to recoup from, Johnson said every college town deals with some pre-study partying.

“We’re not unique by any stretch of the imagination,” Johnson said. “From freshmen all the way to seniors, from the serious student to the not-serious student, from undergrad to Ph.D., no one’s in class.

“From the standpoint of policing and problems, it was a great year.”

But some freshmen were surprised the week didn’t live up to the stories they’d heard about in the past - and by the activities that tired them out during the day.

Tours, welcome meetings, information sessions and group activities kept new students busy from morning until night.

“I heard it was all parties,” said business freshman Jesse Graff. “After Welcome Week when my older friends got in town, things started to get better.

“I was so tired from all the crap we had to do during the day that I didn’t go out at night.”

Chelsea McCavit, a business freshman, said although she found the energy to walk from her Mason Hall room to Grand River Avenue, the nightlife wasn’t what she’d hoped for.

“I was expecting more to be going on,” she said. “There aren’t that many people, and the police were everywhere. Eventually you got tired of it and just came back.”