Domer Fest, not Graffiti Dance, packs Stepan at Frosh O
By ERIN LaRUFFA
Assistant News Editor
About 2,300 first-year students and residence hall volunteers crowded into Stepan Center Saturday night for the newly created Domer Fest, the event replacing the Graffiti Dance on the freshman orientation schedule.
Student Activities created the new activity with the help of commissioners from each residence hall. The change was a response to numerous complaints about the Graffiti Dance, during which freshmen wrote their names and telephone numbers on each others' shirts.
Domer Fest featured a video dance and carnival-style games. Students also received booklets to obtain the names and telephone numbers of people they met.
"For a first-time inaugural event, [Domer Fest] went fine," said Peggy Hnatusko, Student Activities assistant director for programs.
Fest planners wanted to create an activity in which all first-year students would feel comfortable participating. In past years, some students felt excluded at the Graffiti Dance because of their physical appearance. Students also complained that they felt they were on display, and some believed that having other people sign their shirts was a form of sexual harassment.
"The main thing was we wanted to be non-discriminatory," said sophomore Morgan Russell, Pangborn's commissioner.
"I don't think the women felt as much pressure to talk to the guys than at the Graffiti Dance," Hnatusko said. "There was a lot of talking … Many students used the booklets to meet people that way."
Freshmen who attended the Domer Fest had mixed feelings about the new event.
"It was good in the aspect that we met people. It sucked in the aspect that it felt like I was in grade school," Keough resident John McCarthy said. "Overall, it was cool."
McCarthy said that he met people at the Domer Fest that he plans to see again. But it wasn't always that easy.
"It was more fun to run into the people you'd already met," Howard resident Mary Kate Radelet said.
Other freshmen felt pressured to participate.
"I didn't like it at all," said Howard resident Taiss Lewis. "I felt forced to do it." Similarly, McCarthy said that students should have been more free to "mingle" instead of feeling as though they had to take part in planned activities.
Students were not required to attend and could leave the dance at any time, although anyone who left after midnight was not allowed to return.
"If someone wasn't having a good time, they could just leave," Russell said.
One major problem was that Stepan was too hot and crowded, according to freshmen surveyed. Event planners may relocate the event next year, either to an outside venue or to a larger arena such as the Joyce Center, according to Hnatusko.
The Graffiti Dance was held on the basketball courts near Stepan, but the lights there were too bright for the video screen used for the dance. For safety reasons, the lights would have to be on during a nighttime event. Therefore, Domer Fest took place inside Stepan.
Both Russell and Hnatusko said that details of next year's Domer Fest may be different. It is possible that something more closely resembling the Graffiti Dance may be added, according to Russell.
Despite the heat, there was more dancing at Domer Fest, said Hnatusko, who estimated that 1,400 people were on the dance floor at any given time.
All News Stories for Wednesday, August 23, 2000
