On Sept. 29, the Resident Hall Council (RHC) put on their first ever Mavs After Dark event. The activity for the night was string art in the Maverick Pavillion and it lasted from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. Mavs After Dark is a brand new event this year that is aimed to give students an on campus, late night activity on the weekend.
One of the goals of these events is to bring students, both on and off campus, together in a safe and fun environment.
“To give students a positive activity,” Emily Bollinger, assistant director for staff and residence education, said. “Maybe they aren’t interested in going to sporting events or maybe they don’t know the surrounding community. And so we just wanted them to have somewhere they can go, to meet some other people, have a safe atmosphere and just some good fun.”
The plan is for these events to start out once a month. Currently, they are set in place to happen towards the end of each month until March. However, depending upon how well these events are received by students, they could happen more often.
“We wanted to have it on a consistent basis,” Bollinger said. “[We] wanted to get it off the ground and see how it goes, and see if it is successful. And then maybe provide it more often.”
While the first event was centered around arts and crafts, this is not going to be the case each month.
“We won’t always do crafty stuff,” Bollinger said. “But that is just what the people who planned it wanted to do.”
Each event is put on by different residence halls and their coordinators and RAs. The events rotate who comes up with the ideas for each month from those different halls. The hope is, they will be putting on events that students are going to find appealing and want to come to.
“Since it is all really new, we just are kind of seeing what students want to do,” Bollinger said.
The next Mavs After Dark is scheduled for Oct. 21 and the activity is going to be centered around country line dancing. It will be held in the Mav Pav like the string art activity. While November’s activity is still up in the air, the plan is for Angelo’s Pottery and Glass Studio to come to the one in December. Students will then have the opportunity to make Christmas and seasonal ornaments.
