Spalding is having a huge Spirit Week starting Monday, Feb. 4 and leading up to Homecoming on Saturday, Feb. 9! It’s a great time to let loose and have fun with everyone, and to cheer on our Golden Eagles’ men’s and women’s basketball teams during their Homecoming doubleheader against MacMurray.
The basketball games on Saturday will be at 1 p.m. (women) and 3 p.m. (men) at Columbia Gym, and that night, from 9 p.m.-1 a.m., we’ll have a Gatsby-themed Homecoming dance at the College Street Ballroom. Everyone should expect lots of awesome music, dancing, an amazing backdrop for pictures, endless snacks to keep your energy up, and, of course, we will find out who our kings and queens are!
This is a time for everyone to forget about school for a couple of hours and just hang out with all of your friends. At last year’s Homecoming dance, about 120 student attended. We want to double that number this weekend. The more people, the more alive the party can be.
Each day of Spirit Week has a theme:
Monday: PJ Day
Tuesday: Jersey Day
Wednesday: Duo Day
Thursday: Throwback Thursday
Saturday (Game Day): Blue and Gold
Saturday night (Dance Night): Wear whatever you feel comfortable dancing in, but with the Gatsby theme, it wouldn’t hurt to sport your best 1920s costume!
Homecoming and Spirit Week are organized by Spalding’s Campus Activities Board (CAB), which seeks to make students’ campus-event ideas come to life. We try to provide students with things to do on a down week, and we want to build up school spirit. If you want to join CAB, contact me at jnelson03@spalding.edu.
I hope everyone gets into the spirit for Spirit Week and can make it to the games to support our Eagles on Saturday!
As part of Founders’ Weekend, Spalding University hopes alumni and the community at large will come get acquainted with its newest campus green space on Oct. 5-6 and take time to eat, drink and play some games.
Spalding welcomes the public to its inaugural free Founders’ Weekend Fall Festival at newly opened Trager Park from 4-9 p.m. that Friday and Saturday. There will be lawn games, including a nine-hole miniature golf course, inflatables, food trucks and beer served by Great Flood Brewing. AT&T Fiber is another sponsor.
The park is located at the corner of South Second and West Kentucky streets, and free parking will be available at the former Kroger building.
Bellissimo and Georgia Sweet Potato Pie Co. will offer food on Friday, and Street Food King will on both days.
“I think there will be a good variety of activities – food, games, music, the Spalding community and the nearby community, too, “ said Shaun McDonough, Spalding’s new director of student activities and recreation. “So I think it’ll be a great mixture for everyone.
“This being a big activity in Trager Park is really great, and I know in my role, I’m looking at what can we use that space for, whether it be intramurals or other things in the future.”
Trager Park is a 2.2-acre grassy park with 100 newly planted trees. It opened in November 2017 after the property was transformed from an unused asphalt lot. The fall festival will be one of the first official university events held at the park, and it’ll certain to be the biggest so far.
“We’re just seeing how things are growing at Spalding and how we’re just trying to do more,” McDonough said.
With alumni in town for reunion weekend and visiting prospects and their parents on campus, Spalding is hoping for a big festival crowd. The Spalding festival will also be the same weekend as the St. James Court Art Show, held up a short distance away in Old Louisville, and Spalding hopes St. James fans will stop by Trager Park afterward.
There is nothing like the excitement and resources of a big city.
That’s why Spalding University, a top five college in Kentucky (College Choice 2017 & 2018), is a dynamic option for prospective college students.
Spalding, with a 23-acre campus in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, is located within miles, if not blocks, of many of the state’s most active sources of commerce and culture. Many of the companies and nonprofit organizations where young adults most aspire to work are right near campus. As are some of the state’s coolest restaurants, music and sports venues, museums, galleries, shops and parks.
So for students eager to live in a big city while also wanting to attend a small university, Spalding shapes up as a great choice.
“I love that Spalding is close to everything,” said sophomore Jessica Nelson, who is an art major from Somerset, Kentucky. “I have many different places to explore, and I have access to a lot of things that small towns don’t. Being able to explore (professional) options in Louisville while I’m younger will definitely give me a feel for my future jobs and internships.”
“Living in Louisville after college is my plan,” said Spalding sophomore Ethan Thornton, who majors in business administration with a concentration in marketing. “It’s a city on the come-up, and attending Spalding is a great way to live in a big city while still feeling like everything is close by.”
Thornton said he loves that campus is near the business sector of the city, making it less intimidating to venture out to network or pursue internships and jobs.
“It’s also really refreshing knowing that these employers can reach out to Spalding references easily,” he said.
Before coming to Spalding, Nelson, who is studying pre-art therapy, said she had never been to an art museum because there are none in her hometown.
“Being open to all the opportunities to see art only five minutes from my dorm was amazing,” she said. “I really enjoy going to the Speed Museum and getting inspiration for my homework and projects.”
Nelson said she and her friends enjoy bike riding around town, and she likes to visit a nearby butterfly farm on the weekends. She also enjoys exploring thrift shops and downtown festivals to check out art that’s for sale.
“There is much more to look at in Louisville,” she said.
As for campus life, Nelson, who lived in Morrison Hall last year and has moved into the Spalding Suites this summer, said Spalding’s community of students, faculty and staff is small enough that she can get to know a lot of people, “if not everyone,” on campus.
“But,” she added, “I still have the perks of living in a big city.”
“I’m very happy with my decision to attend Spalding,” Nelson said. “Most colleges don’t get as personal with their students to guide them where they need to be.”
Friday afternoon was a perfect time to get outside at Spalding University.
In what the Office of Student Engagement hopes will become a tradition, Spalding held its first Field Day on Friday afternoon under sunny skies and warm temperatures at 7-month-old Trager Park. About 50 students, faculty and staff played dodge ball and kickball, had a water balloon fight and bounced around in a bouncy house all in the spirit of getting outside and enjoying college life together.
Anna Foshee, Spalding Director of Student Engagement, said the Field Day was organized in response to feedback from lots of current and prospective students who have been wanting to see more intramural sports and activities on campus. She said her office hopes to develop more intramural programs next school year.
The Field Day was perhaps the first large campus event to take place at Trager Park, the 2.2-acre green space at the corner of Second and Kentucky streets that opened in November after being converted from an abandoned parking lot. The sodded lawn is now established and bright green, and more than 100 trees have been planted. The park was built with the idea in mind of being a site for intramural sports and campus events.
“This is amazing. It’s so nice,” Foshee said. “Besides using it for events, just showcasing it to students and making them aware of its existence and making them aware that they can access it whatever they want, that’s important. It’s going to be awesome for campus events, campus culture.”
Michaela Patton, Campus Activities Board president, said the entire third floor of Morrison Hall, where’s she’s the RA, was excited to come to Field Day.
“This is what Spalding is all about,” she said. “We’re family. It was a great chance for everybody to get together outside before the weekend starts, and with summer about to start and a lot of people going home for the summer, it was a great chance to enjoy being together as a campus community.”
Patton, a junior, said the creation of Trager Park has made for a transformation in the lower part campus and that she believes the green space will benefit students and members of the neighborhood for years to come.
“It’s an amazing place,” she said. “It’s so open. It’s a great investment. It’s a great way to get the people on campus active.
“It used to be a big blob of parking lot and rocks. Now when I drive down this street with family or a friend, I point out the window at the park and say, ‘Hey, that’s my school!’ That’s amazing.”
Even some future Spalding students stopped by Field Day.
Spencer County High School seniors Andrea Nation and Sonyia Helton, who are committed to attend Spalding and study nursing next fall, accepted the invitation from the admissions office to come by Field Day to visit campus and meet some of their future classmates.
“I feel like it’s very welcoming,” Helton said. “It’s such a small-knit, tight college campus. Everyone knows everyone. I think this was a chance to get a jump and get a feel of how everyone treats each other and how friendly everyone is.”
Nation said she chose Spalding because it is close to home, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and has six-week block scheduling.
Visiting on Friday provided the chance “to meet new people, see new faces in making that transition from high school to college,” she said.
Spalding students at Field Day at Trager Park, May 11, 2018
Students at the 2018 Field Day in Trager Park
Members of the Campus Activities Board attended Field Day at Trager Park, May 11, 2018
Spencer County High seniors Sonyia Helton (left) and Andrea Nation, who are committed to Spalding for next fall, attended Spalding Field Day on May 11, 2018.
Spalding University will host about 150 higher-education faculty, staff and students from around the state tomorrow, Friday, March 2 for a conference that will examine ways to improve civil dialogue on campuses, including using talking circles, and to have productive conversations about difficult topics.
Spalding will be the site of the all-day Kentucky Engagement Conference, sponsored by the Kentucky Campus Compact, which is a coalition of public and private college and university presidents from around the state joined to fulfill the civic purposes of higher education.
The title of the conference is “Civil Dialogue: Approaches and Applications” and will include information on the use of talking circles and restorative practices.
Chandra Irvin, director of the Center for Spiritual Renewal
The point of the conference is to ask, “How do we get past those fears and anxieties that keep us from really talking to one another about things that really matter?” said Chandra Irvin, director of Spalding’s Center for Spiritual Renewal. “And how do we do it in a civil way that moves us forward as a community and a society?”
“When tensions are very high like in today’s times – and people stake their claims that they’re over here on this side and that you’re on that side – we decide that to prevent us from arguing we’re not going to talk. Then, we don’t make any progress. I don’t learn anything from you, don’t learn why and how you came to think the way you do or what’s important about what you’re saying or what I might not have heard before. What is it that we share? Do we have a greater purpose that we share?
“When we engage in civil dialogue, or have talking circles,” Irvin continued, “we can find those places where we have interconnection, agree and have common goals and visions. When we take that time to slow down and do that and let silence to help us interpret and feel and sense what the other person has just expressed from the depths of their heart, it’s a whole difference experience.”
According to its website kycompact.org, the Kentucky Campus Compact, which has its offices at Northern Kentucky University, helps campuses forge effective community partnerships and provides resources and training for faculty seeking to integrate civic- and community-based learning into the curriculum.
Friday’s conference will run from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and includes a keynote address from Spalding President Tori Murden McClure at 9 a.m., titled, “Taking a Risk: Why Difficult Conversations Matter.”
There also will be training about talking circles, which are a dialogue and problem-solving method embraced at Spalding, and skill-building workshops on a range of issues, including restorative justice.
Spalding faculty, staff and students interested in attending can email Liz Eader at the Center for Peace and Spiritual Renewal at eeader@spalding.edu.
Irvin said that after McClure’s speech, several Spalding presenters will give brief explanations on the process of talking circles and the ways they are used at Spalding. That’ll include ways faculty members use them in the classroom and how students view them.
The conference attendees will then form groups to have talking circles.
“They’re very intentionally designed and created safe spaces,” she said, “so that those who participate can engage in those most challenging conversations, those that nobody really wants to talk about like, ‘We could, and I want to, but I would dare not because I become too vulnerable, or I may hurt somebody’s feelings, or it’ll get too heated and the next thing you know, we’ll be fighting.’”
Irvin said talking circles engage participants emotionally and spiritually with one another, and “the participants can identify something much greater than themselves – a purpose and a meaning greater than themselves – and discover how they’re interconnected with one another and their shared vision in the midst of serious differences.”
She said participants realize their individual and collective gifts and wisdom, then “are able to use that wisdom to find solutions that serve everybody.”
The talking circles have guidelines about sharing talking time while also allowing participants not to speak, if they desire, and there’s an object positioned in the circle that symbolizes the group’s connectedness and another object that’s passed around to the person who’s speaking. Silence is also interwoven into the process in order to ponder what a person has said or for upcoming speakers to gather their thoughts.
“It’s designed to respect the worth and dignity of everybody and to allow them to bring their true and best selves forward,” Irvin said.
Irvin said Spalding uses talking circles in a variety of ways, including matters of student discipline, faculty disagreements, faculty-student disagreements and departmental strategies. She said she also has used talking circles in her personal life with friends and relatives.
“It’s a great skill to have and develop,” she said.
Last chance to register for the Kentucky Engagement Conference on March 2 – we’d love to have you join us to learn more about how to facilitate courageous conversations! #KEC2018https://t.co/vbvH9zDaua
— Kentucky Campus Compact (@KYCampusCompact) March 1, 2018
