Off the Hook, Gannon University’s second series of daylong events and activities, was held Saturday.
It took multiple people and organizations for this event to happen, such as Activities Planning Board – APB – Alan Swigonski, director of Waldron Campus Center, and Sam Hyman, Knight Club adviser and campus events tech director.
Swigonski works closely with the Student Success Center and also works in business and administration.
Swigonski praised all the help he had received from students and faculty in the marketing department, Hyman and Nicole McAllister, president of APB.
“This year’s Off the Hook benefited from much more student involvement, wonderful entertainment and great food from The Knight Club,” Hyman said.
Planning for this year’s event began as soon as student surveys were collected in 2012, Swigonski said. Considering the weather situation, the events were planned accordingly to this possibility.
There were multiple tents set up over multiple locations, ensuring that the event would go on rain or shine. Anything outside that could not be fixed by placing a tent over it was then moved into the Carneval Athletic Pavilion.
Last year’s event attracted approximately 230 students, while this year’s event yielded approximately 275 students despite the weather.
McAllister, a junior biology major, thought the event went great.
“I am completely certain that ‘Off the Hook’ will continue to be an annual event on campus that people look forward to,” McAllister said.
The list of events that were to be held throughout the day included lawn games – such as corn hole and hula hooping— free food and student poetry readings.
A special appearance from Mayhem Poets, a poetry slam group, and Alpha Rev — a rock band — were contracted by McAllister.
The event stretched late into the night with video karaoke, pool and card games at The Knight Club.
Brooke Bateman, a junior occupational therapy major, said Alpha Rev was one of her favorite performances of the night.
“Despite the weather condition, Alpha Rev brought a lot of energy to the stage,” Bateman said
The Knight Club donated a variety of food for the event varying from sandwich wraps to smaller snacks and Metz donated cookies and veggie trays, while Pepsi was also a sponsor of this year’s event, donating all the soda.
At the 2012 event, students were asked to write prayers on different colored flags, which according to a Buddhist tradition, should be burned one year later in order for the prayers to be heard and answered. At this year’s event students were asked to “showcase their possibilities” by using either a smart phone or camera to take a picture of what they believed they are capable of achieving while at Gannon. Once the picture was taken students were then asked to submit these photos to [email protected].
Students are also being encouraged to tweet these photos using the hashtag #GUPossibilities. Once all the pictures have been submitted, the Gannon marketing department will work on putting every student’s small pictures together to create one large picture.
“We’ll follow up with student surveys going out later this week to those who attended,” Swigonski said. “We’ll then assess how well the program was received, and use the student input to improve it for next time.”
KRISTEN MARINI
