UNCA kicked off a new tradition March 21, hosting its first ever on-campus Spring Equinox Celebration, allowing for students to come together for an afternoon filled with creative activities, community spirit and a vibrant celebration of the season.
The event was hosted in Highsmith Student Union by the university’s events department.
“To me, the success of the event is wrapped up in how people feel about the event, both as an organizer and an attendee. When I look around the event as an organizer, I hope to see attendees enjoying themselves—talking, laughing, interacting with one another and taking part in the activities. That’s a clear visual that the event is going well,” said Halle Strahan, director of university events.
Strahan said the Spring Equinox Celebration was intended to bring everyone together in a way that could connect everyone to the season. She said with this event she wanted students to leave feeling glad they took the time out of their day to attend and hopefully come back for more pop-up events in the future.
During the event attendees could visit a plethora of different stations that related to the spring equinox in various different ways.
Some of these stations included a diy bouquet station, pot painting, the food equity initiative fruit pop-up, indigenous beadwork demonstrations and a flower arrangement workshop.
“Behind the scenes, I like for other organizers to feel calm and confident in the event’s planning process and execution. To other organizers, it should feel, well, organized. Even if you hit a snag, as a team we should be able to quickly and professionally respond to it in a way that doesn’t take away from the attendee experience,” Strahan said.
Strahan said the university events team manages not only small events like the spring equinox celebration, but also helps out in various different aspects of all of the events happening on campus.
“The event comes into the inbox that my team manages, and one of us event assistants will decide whether it is something that we are able to handle, or if it needs input or assistance from our supervisor. This involves considerations like where the request is coming from, the number of estimated guests, and what space is being asked for. Then we check in our software, EMS, to see if what is being requested is possible,” said Maddy Smart, university events student assistant.
Smart said the university events team ensures they have set-up notes to pass off for individuals in the operations team when they are events in Highsmith.
“We get to see a lot of the life stages of an event, from start to finish, but most of what I do is in those first, early stages, when it’s all spreadsheets and a piece of software that looks like it’s from 2006,” Smart said.
She said for certain campus life events, they assist in other ways, like organizing and putting out decorations.
“It was a really lovely event, probably my favorite so far this semester. It was clearly a hit with other students too, as we had a lot of traffic and a few stations that ran out of supplies! It was cool to see things I had helped to pick out for shopping lists and being enjoyed,” Smart said.
Not only was the university’s events department represented during the celebration, but different organizations and departments also helped in running the event.
“I was representing Student Transitions & Family Programs as a special populations event coordinator. It was important for our office to be present at the Spring Equinox event because we were promoting our First Generation Celebration Day event coming up. We believe it’s important for non-traditional students to know they have support here on campus, and seeing us promoting them at campus events is one of the ways we do that,” said Mikaela Futrell, student special populations event coordinator.
Futrell said for the spring equinox celebration her department did pot painting. She said students also said the pots were convenient considering the fact that plants were being given away just around the corner.
She said from what she saw, the event was extremely well attended.
“I don’t think I expected the event to be as well-attended as it was! Within the first 20 minutes of the event, each station was very busy. I hesitate to call that a “problem” because it’s obviously a great problem to have. But knowing this for next time, I would make sure to have more supplies at each station,” Strahan said.
Strahan said the flowers went very quickly, and by the end they had run out of plants as well. She said she loves to see so many people interested in coming out and she will definitely remember that moving forward.
Strahan said as director of university events she loves any opportunity to collaborate with her colleagues to do something special for students.
She said although most departments are incredibly busy, when they get a chance to come together and be creative, it really warms her heart.
“So many other offices and groups jumped in and wanted to be a part of it. It wouldn’t have been a success without everyone who came out to take part in it. It was so rewarding to see such an amazing turnout—I know students are very busy too, so for so many people to take time out of their day to stop by the event is so wonderful. I hope that even spending a few minutes at the event brightens someone’s day and gives them something fun to take home,” Strahan said.
