Thunder Cup competition kicks off second year

This year the Resident Student Association kicked off the Thunder Cup competition with CAB’s Toy Story 3 and the Athletic Department’s Midnight Madness on Oct. 1 and Oct. 14, respectively.
The Thunder Cup, a year-long competition between the residence halls and The Village, is an opportunity where residents earn points for their hall. In Fall 2007, Bruce Harshbarger, vice president of student affairs and dean of students, and Larry Christenson, the executive director of University Housing, pitched the idea to RSA.
Senior special education major Justin Stubbs has been managing the Thunder Cup competition since it began last year.
“The purpose of the Thunder Cup is to encourage students to get involved in different aspects of campus life and to have pride in their hall,” Stubbs said. “I am very excited about the Thunder Cup this year because more people know about it now than ever before and more people are wanting their events to be Thunder Cup events.”
Last year, Wells Hall won the Thunder Cup because the residence hall earned the most points in various competitions.
Senior nursing major Summer Whittington lived in Wells Hall last year and participated in Thunder Cup events.
“I really liked living in Wells. The Thunder Cup gets the freshmen involved with the rest of things that are going on on-campus,” Whittington said. “The Wells staff are very pro-active and get you really excited for activities in the dorms and for sporting events.”
A hall can earn points in the following areas: Intramurals, academic, fine arts, athletics, wellness, on-campus involvement, community involvement, service, eco-awareness and leadership.
Junior mass communication major Stephanie Sorensen is a Parkhurst Community Advisor and knows that Thunder Cup events encourage school community.
“I think Thunder Cup is awesome. I think it is a great way to get students involved,” Sorensen said. “We have a lot of freshmen who are eager to get involved and eager to have the college experience.”
Intramurals and academics are based on performance, and the points in service, fine arts, athletics, wellness, on-campus program involvement and community involvement are based on participation.
During participation events, a Bobcat Card swipe is necessary, but at service events, RSA takes the service hours recorded. Finally, the points are tallied, and each hall receives a Thunder Cup score.
“We are still working on defining what the leadership and eco-awareness area of competitions are and how we will score them,” Stubbs said. “All scoring for every area of competition is percentage based so no hall has an advantage by having more people in it.”
The Village buildings, 1 through 4, are considered one hall, while buildings 5 and 6 are combined into another hall. In addition, these halls show how the community councils are divided.
“I believe the Thunder Cup is going to become the face of GCSU and the housing community,” Stubbs said. “The Thunder Cup is going to create school pride that has yet to be seen at GCSU.”
The prize money has not yet been determined this year. However, last year each hall that won in different areas of the competition received $300 each for winning. Seventy-five percent of the Thunder Cup funding is for the prizes. The winner of the Thunder Cup receives the most money for their residence hall and receives the Thunder Cup trophy for the next year.

Posted by Brittany Henderson on Oct 22 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.