After reviewing the 2004 Fall Celebration Survey, it seems incredibly likely the MSU Board of Trustees will use the results to support making tailgating restrictions permanent. The board will meet on Thursday and review the tailgating restrictions.

The rules regulate tailgating hours and ban drinking games.

This survey on students' drinking suggests that the number of students who drank or got drunk while tailgating diminished by more than half after the restrictions were put in place. In addition, a report indicating a lesser amount of tailgate trash shows the restrictions seem to have had positive results for the university. The amount of student tailgaters decreased after the restrictions were implemented. The tailgates seemed a lot calmer and controlled.

All of these factors will likely spell success in the eyes of the board. Let's face it, the results do seem positive.

The university is trying to change its reputation as a party school and increase safety during tailgating. It can cut costs because the cleanup expenses will be less, and it will not need as many police officers to patrol campus during game days.

Tailgating, as students have known it, will most likely undergo a permanent change. This might be a reality students will have to get used to, and people will just have to accept it.

There will still be ways to tailgate on campus, just in a controlled way. Some of the more perverse tailgating activities will hopefully diminish as a result. It is also likely that students will continue to move more of their binge drinking off campus and into the city of East Lansing.

There is little anyone can do to stop the board from making the restrictions permanent. The surveys help prove their rules caused desired changes.

The best thing to do is just accept the tailgating restrictions and learn to live with them. We don't see them going away anytime soon.