As the senior class anticipates its last days at Quinnipiac, student members of the Senior Week committee plan the festivities for this year’s special week following graduation.
Senior Week is an annual three-day celebration that brings senior classmates together to share in a memorable event before ending their undergraduate experience.
Austin Ashe, one of the committee members, explained what Senior Week is all about.
“It gives [seniors] one more chance, especially after being kicked off campus, to get back in touch with one another,” said Ashe, co-coordinator of senior week, “and to really end the undergraduate experience on a high note.”
This year’s Senior Week will begin on May 14 and will end on May 16 just before the graduation commencement on May 17, this year moved to a Saturday.
As a requirement, seniors will arrive to campus and live in the dorms for the three days. There will be an event scheduled during the day and at night where transportation, food and beverages will be provided.
As the spring semester begins, committee members and the committee adviser are attending weekly meetings to discuss and organize the events in place for Senior Week. During last Friday’s meeting, committee members and the event managers discussed the remaining day and night events still to be scheduled.
Currently, there are two out of five events left to plan. By next week’s meeting, the committee should have a concrete idea of what they are doing, said Ashe.
Senior members on the committee have confidence that this year’s Senior Week will be a great success.
“I think we represent what our class wants,” said Jackie Langenstein, event manager of Senior Week. “By having good members on the committee, we hope to make for a fun time during senior week.”
Ashe was a junior representative last year, and he said this year’s Senior Week will be different from previous years’.
“We have a class that knows how to have fun,” said Ashe. “More fun than any previous graduating class. I’m sure that with all of us in one boat this year’s seniors will have an experience that is unlike any other.”
The new adviser for Senior Week, Kerstin Soderlund, director of the Carl Hansen Student Center, said she shows a positive outcome for the committee.
“I am excited to have this opportunity to work so closely with the seniors on this committee,” said Soderlund. “I think this committee is really interested in finding out how the members of their class want to spend their final days.”
From Feb. 3 through Feb. 7, committee members will have an information table set up to give seniors their last chance to make a final payment of $200 for Senior Week, and to give seniors additional information about the events planned. As of last Friday’s meeting, there were approximately 240 seniors signed up for Senior Week.
Senior Week Committee members include co-coordinators Felicity Melillo and Austin Ashe, Public Relations Director Rich Grassia, Treasurer Pamela McCarthy and Event Managers Thomas Beline, Jackie Langenstein, Danielle Vitale, Colleen Borowski, Trixy Palencia and Kelly Mohr. Committee assistants include Dan Quinn, Erin O’Mara and Alexis Levine.
For additional information about Senior Week, e-mail Felicity Melillo or Austin Ashe at their respective Quinnipiac e-mail addresses, and look for next week’s follow-up on Senior Week in The Chronicle.
