Purple streamers lined the Ronnie Williams Student Center lawn after “Decorate the Lawn” on Thursday, Oct. 23.
The Division of Advancement invited students to decorate the lawn to celebrate homecoming and show off their Bear pride.
Participants used ladders to guide themselves as they placed decorations on the treetops near the amphitheater and the lawn.
Tyler Jones, assistant director of student life, said the event serves as a good opportunity for UCA students to earn volunteer hours.
“Deck the Lawn is one of our annual homecoming events that we do, kind of in preparation for homecoming week,” Jones said. “It’s also a very good service and volunteer opportunity for a lot of our students to get just a couple of volunteer hours, but they kind of get to show a little bit of school spirit, a bit of school pride, just getting to decorate the common area in front of the student center, put up a lot of purple decorations, and also kind of build a good service and community volunteer sort of culture around this event.”
Jacqueline Austin, director of student life, said that events like this foster community and campus tradition.
“I think just instilling a sense of pride in our institution and understanding that homecoming is an event, not just for our returning students, for our alumni, but for our current students as well, to celebrate [that] they will one day be an alumni, and then the alumni that they can look up to,” Austin said.
Sophomore Liam Johnson attended the event to earn service hours and help the campus community.
He said he thinks it’s important for students to come out to events like this.
“It helps people get to know one another better and connect to the community, but it also helps this event,” Johnson said. “We’re just putting up decorations for different festivities, so it helps the people in that festivity feel more important.”
Freshman Dakota Caldwell also participated in the event to earn volunteer hours.
“It’s mainly all about community and to help out and for the service hours,” Caldwell said.
