Student Life & Leadership held this semester’s Spring Fling in the Quad of the West Windsor Campus on April 24 from 11:00 am to 2:00 am.
The event featured a large rock climbing pillar, a surfboard rider challenge, a bouncy castle obstacle course, and multiple games hosted by Student Government, such as a three-legged race and musical chairs.
When asked about the activities, Dana Dillard, a second-year Liberal Arts Major, said “I got the chance to watch some of my friends race up the rock climbing wall.”
Kari Forwood, Coordinator of New Student Orientation says, “We are thrilled with the turnout. We think it’s because of the good weather and overall we’ve seen a lot more involvement on campus this semester and last semester. People are more interested in coming out and doing activities and meeting people.”
The Spring Fling also offered three food trucks to pick from, D&D Catering, Five Sisters food truck, and Beach Shack food truck, as well as three ice cream trucks, the Lexylicious Ice Cream, Good Humor, and Mister Softy.
While the event continued, the walkways were lined with multiple tables that featured many of the clubs available at Mercer from the Viking Radio, to the Rainbow Alliance, and the Mycology Club.
Lou Hollar, President of Mycology Club said, “We’re just really, really lucky to have, like on campus support, student support.” He added, “We have tons of people involved with Mycology Club, even though they may not be biology majors or affiliated with STEM in any sort of way.”
Some student club representatives said that while they were glad to be there, they had faced challenges with funding and space for club events this year.
Alex Schmitt, President of the Rainbow Alliance, said after two semesters, the Rainbow Alliance still doesn’t have their usual club room for everyday meetings as they did in the past.
“There’s a lot of miscommunications in terms of why we don’t have our club space anymore and things like that, things that we’re still trying to figure out. So I think that especially it’s a mixture between Student Life and Administration and a lot of just miscommunication and misinformation going around,” said Schmitt.
When asked about the Rainbow Alliance’s concerns Danielle Garruba, Director of Student Life and Leadership, declined to comment.
While the Rainbow Alliance struggles with finding a place to meet, Lou Hollar expressed a different experience with Student Life.
“The people who work in student life are professionals. They are experts at event organizing, at budget management, about making sure that the people who run the Foundation and the school have enough oversight so that they feel comfortable and at the end of the day all of the stuff that we enjoy as students has to do with that.”
The Spring Fling is one of the events that students say they enjoy most each year. Heidy Garcia, a second-year Nursing major attended the event with some friends. She says they especially liked the food trucks.
Garcia says, “I really like the shrimp tacos, they were so good. It was nice that the school provided the food.”
This was the first Spring Fling Garcia attended. She says she was impressed with all the activities Mercer had for students to enjoy.
“It was actually really nice. I wasn’t expecting to see so many people, but everybody looked like they were having fun,” Garcia said.
