Our Voice

    The Colonnade polled 10 random students on Front Campus last Wednesday on the awareness of GCSU Homecoming. Each student participating in the poll was asked two questions: Did the student know that this weekend was homecoming weekend? Would they participate in the homecoming?
    The results were stunning.
    Three out of the 10 students were aware that this weekend was homecoming weekend and two out the ten students said they were planning on taking part in the festivities.
    This is a big gap in our university’s unity.
    Homecoming is an annual tradition in the United States. People, towns, high schools and colleges come together to welcome back alumni. It is built around a central event, such as a banquet or a sports game. The nation’s first homecoming was in 1911 at the University of Missouri in Columbia and was held by the NCAA.
    It is a time of unity for celebrating at schools, often consisting of a sports game played on the school’s campus. Activities for students and alumni, a parade featuring the school’s marching band, and the coronation of a homecoming queen (and at many schools, a homecoming king) are also usually held.
    This made The Colonnade wonder why is homecoming a low priority at GCSU? Do the students not care or is it the school’s fault?
    We believe the school does not market GCSU homecoming sufficiently. If less than 30 percent of the students in our poll did not realize it was homecoming this weekend then the school is not making a good enough effort advertising. Moreover, only 20 percent said they would participate.
    We looked over the agenda for homecoming weekend and it is centered on the alumni. The events featured on Saturday include a campus open house at 9 a.m., a homecoming parade at 2 p.m., an alumni tailgate at 2 p.m., the men’s and women’s basketball game against Clayton State from 2-6 p.m., and an alumni barbeque at 6 p.m.
    It is a given that the weekend is designed to get the alumni to come back, but the students spend every day here for four years or even more. We need to be involved. Most of the events are promotional events for the school and not about building school spirit. The school needs to spend less time worrying about our image and more time building school unity.
    A few suggestions to boost involvement is to create a GCSU day, where students can wear clothing with the school’s name or school’s colors or have a pep rally before the homecoming basketball game.

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colonnadeletters@gcsu.edu

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 9 2007. Filed under Opinion, Our Voice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry