A team cheer, sporting a team color, and of course, winning games. These are all competitions within the Dorm Spirit Awards which commenced at the beginning of the school year during the annual Back to School Bash.
Each year before the start of fall classes, the staff of Student Life gathers to discuss and organize events for the upcoming school year. Their goal is to create activities and games that are fun, engaging, and encourage student participation..
Student life also strives to promote community within the dorms – as well as amongst all the students on campus – to foster new friendships. To accomplish this, Student Life staff needed something new this year—something with incentive that would be appealing to students from every dorm. Thus the Judson College Dorm Spirit Awards were created.
The Awards consist of students earning points for their dorm through participating in various activities or attending certain events. The amount of points dorms can earn for each event depends upon two factors: what event is being attended, and how many residents attend. In order to keep track of points, student life appointed the Resident Assistants (RAs) to collect points for each week from their respective halls.
For points to count, an actual picture or selfie must be taken at the event and sent to your RA. However, no pictures taken with the Snapchat app will be accepted due to the fact that Snapchat picture are not permanent. Each RA will keep track of the number of points her hall has earned and submit weekly reports to Sarah Fowler, the director of Residence Life, by Monday of every week. A full list of the rules will be available on The Triangle’s website.
As the semester progresses, students are enthusiastically participating in earning points for their dorms, and gaining more insight than they initially thought.
Third year senior Lauren Neary – a resident in Barron dorm – believes the Dorm Spirit Awards will have a positive effect on campus. She states that it “gives us a reason to be more sportsmanlike…it [also] gives us the opportunity to learn about the different sports…it’s a great way to promote the Judson spirit.”
Promoting Judson spirit is exactly what student life aspires to do. Judson seeks to foster sisterhood and community among its students, and sometimes the best way to bring people together is through a little friendly competition.