Quinnipiac’s Student Government Association (SGA) organized the first ever Bobcat Day for the QU community set aside to take place today. This all-day event took place on the third and final self-care day given to students in place of Spring break.
Yet, the event’s signature carnival on the Quad was cancelled due to inclement weather.
Despite the weather, SGA organized plenty of indoor events and activities on campus to get students and faculty more involved as the semester comes to an end. The day began with an opening ceremony where students could get free QU gear as well as hear from speakers such as Chief Experience Officer Tom Ellet and President Judy Olian.
Some of the other events included “History of Bobcat Nation,” “Celebrating Faculty and Student Work,” “Self-care in the Sun,” “Talent of Bobcat Nation,” “Trivia and “Bingo,” “Night at the Arcade,” “Pitch competition,” a John King concert and finally a virtual chat with Team USA.
Quinnipiac also brought in food trucks, which were available for students to use their meal points and get food while participating in Bobcat Day.
Jermey Gustafson, SGA’s newly elected vice president of inclusion, diversity, and engagement, spoke to HQNN about the extensive planning behind the event.
“We lead the efforts in putting together activities spanning from academic presentations, which I lead the charge, to games that the president and sophomore class worked on and other stuff similar to that,” he said.
Gustafson also touched upon what he personally did to create an exciting Bobcat Day.
“Over the course of the past semester I have been meeting with different faculty members and different deans and students to see if they would be willing to do presentations surrounding academic research or stuff they published,” he said.
Because of the weather, Gustafson noted that the event did not go exactly as it was planned.
“Yesterday was full of surprises, one of them definitely being the weather,” he said. “We were able to move almost everything inside and we were able to move stuff around and still have games in Buckman and still have speaking events that were scheduled to be outside.”
Despite some challenges, SGA still pushed to have a fun and successful event. For SGA President Sophia Marshall, Bobcat Day is something she has envisioned for a long time.
“Bobcat Day is essentially something I started thinking about two years ago,” she said. “The idea is that President Olian, or whoever is president at the time, would pick a day that is “too nice to have class” and that would be a surprise from the university. Class would get cancelled and it would be this massive day of programming for the student body.”
Marshall and her committee have been working on this event since the beginning of the fall semester.
“It has really been a year-long process of working and collaborating with student organizations. So it’s this really cool sort of thing to see everyone working together to put this on,” she said.
Hannah Stevens is a sophomore senator and part of Marshall’s carnival committee for Bobcat Day.
“We had weekly meetings where the committee met to go over all of our plans,” she said. “We also found vendors and planned which games we would have to make the event fun and educational.”
SGA also planned for the day to take place during one of QU’s self care days.
“It has been in the works for a while and it was meant to be a day off in the Spring semester where the school comes together to show school spirit,” Stevens said. “With the school’s permission we were able to have it on a mental health day. “
Marshall felt it was the perfect opportunity with the self care days, adding her and the rest of SGA decided to debut Bobcat Day this year because they wanted to be able to mold it and make it something that was their own.
“Essentially this is a massive day of programming that celebrates what it really means to be a bobcat,” she said.
To integrate the greater idea of the self care day, SGA hosted events alongside QU Counseling Services including tie dye, meditation and a workshop that targeted releasing your insecurities.
“We wanted to make sure there were some relaxation elements to it,” Marshall said. “There are the really fun high energy portions, which is great because sometimes that is how people take their breaks. For some, they need something a little more relaxing.”
Marshall believed the day most closely mimicked SGA’s long term goal: to have the day be completely off through the school.
Students who attended Bobcat Day were happy that SGA decided to host this event on their day off. Aviah Levine is a freshman who enjoyed attending the activities that were put on.
“This event seemed fun to do with friends and it is good for school spirit and made me feel more connected,” she said. “I also like that it was on a mental health day because it gives students something to do.”
Anna Dulberg, also a freshman, had similar views about today’s events.
“This is a great way to feel like a bobcat,” she said.
Jennifer Charette is a junior that attended the arcade event held in Buckman Theatre.
“I’m usually going to all of the events on campus anyways so this seemed like something fun to be at,” she said. “All of my finals are a week before everyone else’s so it was a nice break from studying and it was a good day to do this since anyone can go to it.”
SGA wants Bobcat Day to become a tradition in the QU community for future bobcats to enjoy.
“I hope the administration sees this and says ‘Let’s do this next year,’” Gustafson said. “I hope today introduces new things to people. It is so fascinating to find out all these different assets to the university that aren’t always highlighted, so I hope tomorrow gives people a space to showcase the work that is done at Quinnipiac that doesn’t always get recognized.”
After planning and working toward this day for so long, it was important to SGA that they created something the administration at QU can take on and continue to grow.
“I really hope it becomes this big thing that people are really excited about for years to come,” Marshall said.
