What better way is there to get hyped up than by devoting an entire week to Piper spirit? Every year, the Hamline University Programming Board (HUPB) coordinates about 60 programs for the Hamline community. The HUPB spirit week dedicated to the homecoming game and dance that was held on Saturday, Oct. 8, in order to demonstrate support for our football team.

On Oct. 2, the HUPB hosted the Homecoming Kickoff which included campus decorating and an ice cream party. Students volunteered and gave assistance to the HUPB with decorating the campus and painting the windows with Piper pride. This event gave Hamline a strong sense of unity and helped students indulge in the welcoming campus atmosphere.

The windows on buildings such as West and East Hall, Bush, Drew Science, Anderson, Klas center and the Lloyd W.D. Walker Fieldhouse were decorated with Piper spirit to promote the homecoming event. It is a tradition at Hamline to advertise homecoming by encouraging students to participate in window painting. Through this tradition, it showed students what it is like to be a Piper. Overall, the window painting along with the decorating of the campus created a spirit-like environment for students that encouraged them to attend the homecoming festivities.

There was a miscommunication between HUPB and the ABM Services in regards to the budgeting of the window painting. The agreement between the two parties was to paint only a few buildings on campus. The miscommunication manifested when the HUPB decorated more buildings than what was originally agreed on. This led to the consequence of the ABM Services charging HUPB nearly $1000-$1400 in cleaning fees. Although it is not unusual to be charged fees by the ABM Services, this created an issue for HUPB because of their limited budget.

Lacey Squier, the Coordinator of Student Activities and the adviser to homecoming planners, gave insight regarding what really happened between the two parties.

“This year’s window painting, I contacted and worked with ABM to talk about a quote for how much it would cost and that was all good,” Squier said. “We actually ended up painting way more windows than ABM and I had communicated about, so that just raises the cost if there is way more windows on campus that are painted, then it takes away more employee hours to clean them.”

According to Squier, the Hamline community did not have that much of an interest when it came to participating in the homecoming decorating in the past year. Last year, HUPB hosted the window decorating event as part of a T-shirt giveaway. Students came to pick up shirts, although not many were interested in participating in decorating the campus.

“[Last year] we had five people trying to decorate the campus and we focused on Bush Student Center Windows and Walker-Fieldhouse windows. It was not a lot of windows, and it, frankly, wasn’t super effective. So with the formation of the new homecoming planners student group, we were able to focus a lot more energy on that event and made the decision to change it to Sunday to really meaningfully include SAAC and student athletes and make it a FYSEM throwdown event,” she said. “We weren’t even necessarily sure what to expect in terms of engagement and then we had a lot of good quality engagement with students and so that is how we got so many more windows painted than we have in the past.”

Squier reassured students that she was informed by the Dean of Students, Alan Sickbert, that President Miller was supportive of the homecoming committee in the work they have done and made sure that all parts of the campus supports making homecoming a success.

“I was notified that President Miller is encouraging the school spirit and the display of school spirit and saying ‘Hey, I don’t think the students hosting this event should have to pay this fee’ right? Because we don’t want to indirectly discourage this kind of engagement in participation because ultimately it’s awesome that this campus is decorated. We love it and so let’s not indirectly send a message that we don’t like by asking them to pay,” Squier said.

Sophomore Kalli Wilson was among the few who participated in the Homecoming Kickoff event. She noticed the difference in the atmosphere of Hamline’s spirit week.

“For the Kickoff specifically, it was really great event to help me bring members of my FYSEM together. I loved helping decorate the campus with them,” said Wilson.

HUPB hosted several events throughout the week in support of homecoming festivities. On Monday, Oct. 3, there was a T-shirt Giveaway event located in the Anderson Forum. On Tuesday, Oct. 4, HUPB hosted the DIY Hamline Pride in Anderson 304/305. Wednesday, Oct. 5, there was a Glow Hunt event that took place throughout the Hamline campus. On Friday, Oct. 7, HUPB hosted the Lip-Syncing Competition located in the Anderson Forum. The homecoming royalty was announced that night. On Saturday, Oct. 8, students attended the homecoming football game and the homecoming dance.

After speaking with senior Afua Paintsil, who was in charge of coordinating and marketing for the homecoming planners, Paintsil gave insight on how students were able to voice who should represent Hamline for the homecoming royalty.

“The homecoming court was one way for students to get involved and to have a voice to say that ‘these are the people that I feel that exemplify what it means to be a piper’ and so I think that it was really successful and it was a way to reach out to different groups whether they’re persons of color or people who identify as LBGTQIA or athletes or honor students.”

Overall, homecoming week was a success. Students participated and engaged in many activities. Through this engagement, the atmosphere of campus was more welcoming and unifying.

“I think the events this week brought people together. Even if you didn’t attend any of the events, you could see the care put into them and the decorations around the campus. It gave everyone a chance to be involved,” Wilson said. “Also props to the committee because I know they worked really hard to make this year successful and change the atmosphere of homecoming”

For more information about joining the HUPB program and their events, contact them via email at hupb@hamline.edu.