Ahead of Homecoming weekend, Penn's Community Care team plans to allow a limited number of daytime parties to resume following a one-year ban.
Last year, during Homecoming — a weekend traditionally marked by daytime parties hosted by fraternity and sorority life organizations — Penn introduced stricter event regulations, including banning parties before 7 p.m. and limiting attendees. In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn Community Care wrote that it will maintain a 100-person capacity limit for events this year, but “no further restrictions” will be in place.
The team has established three designated time slots for registered social events: 3-7 p.m., 6-10 p.m., and 10-2 a.m. A maximum of five events will be allowed per time slot.
The policy change comes after frustration and confusion from student groups who alleged a lack of transparency and unnecessary interventions from Penn last year. The University cited “Major Event Weekend” protocols at the time, which prevented student events from overlapping with official Homecoming programming.
According to Penn, a Major Event Weekend is a weekend with a “significant increase in events and social activity.”
During these weekends — such as Homecoming, when alumni, students, and families return to campus and foot traffic is especially high — the University enforces additional event protocols to manage safety and staffing.
“The Community Care team, in collaboration with DPS and other campus partners, implements additional event registration protocols to ensure adequate support and safety staff are available to serve the Penn community,” a spokesperson for the Division of University Life previously wrote in a statement to the DP.
After the restrictions were announced, Penn community members alleged they were not enforced — except for Homecoming and St. Patrick's Day — until the beginning of this semester. In August 2025, OFSL wrote in a memo to fraternity and sorority leadership that “all chapter homes can only have 100 guests at a given time.”
At the time, multiple members told the DP that this policy had not been applied evenly across the Greek life organizations, with one fraternity president alleging that off-campus organizations didn’t receive the “same repercussions.” However, an off-campus fraternity member wrote that they were experiencing the same issues with the cap.
Since then, according to a previous statement from a fraternity president, OFSL has required crowd counters and “school-sponsored” bouncers for any registered party. Additionally, a fraternity social chair told the DP that the bouncers would allegedly enter parties suspected of violating the 100-person limit and pull a fire alarm.
The social chair added that the “power and freedom” of fraternities and sororities has “rapidly diminished,” and “it's pretty clear the University strategy is working over time, they're just weakening Greek life, and at some point, they can fully eliminate it.”
