April 24 will officially kick-off Spring Party Weekend 2008 (SPW), ushering in a wave of celebrations meant to bring the campus together one last time before the final exam crunch. This year, five seniors have come together to make the first-ever Spring Party Weekend Task Force. This new initiative is designed to facilitate the planning and coordination of the campus activities during the weekend. Seniors Malik Wright, Joelle Di Nardi, Tachelle Tanis, Eileen Zenz and sophomore Sarajane McMahon have several ideas that they would like to introduce for the first time this year.

Last Friday, the Task Force officially launched one of these ideas by hosting the unveiling of the first-ever Spring Party Weekend theme. The O’Connor Campus Center (Coop) TV Room was covered from wall-to-wall with decorations celebrating their choice, “Welcome to the Jungle,” which will be represented throughout the April 24-27 weekend.

Task Force Vice President of Administration Joelle Di Nardi explained why the panel felt that it was important to have a theme for this year’s celebration.

“We decided to create a theme for SPW for two main reasons: to unite the campus and to leave a legacy,” she said. “The latter isn’t so important … we just wanted to do something to change SPW and add something new to it. We felt that a theme would embody part of what SPW is about, which is getting the campus celebrating together. Also, we thought having a theme would provide a solid thread to tie the weekend together, instead of it just being random parties.”

The theme selection process incorporated input from the student body, as well as all members of the Task Force. Several potential themes were brought to the table, and considered based on how each could be realistically implemented into the planning of the weekend.

“We found that we naturally kept seeing multiple ideas for one theme emerge, and [‘Welcome to the Jungle’] seemed like our clear winner,” Di Nardi said. “All of our ideas came from the student body, but we’re keeping them hush-hush so that they have the same element of surprise next year!”

At the party on Friday, students seemed enthusiastic about the theme, which the Task Force hopes will be a new tradition for Spring Party Weekend.

“I think the ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ theme is a great idea,” sophomore Sarah Finn said. “It could be a really fun way to tie everything together. I’ll be interested to see how it’s represented during Spring Party Weekend.”

Although the Task Force has been working to coordinate the “Welcome to the Jungle” concept with everything they plan for the weekend, it is not mandatory for other events to adhere to the theme.

“Student groups have the option of participating in the theme or not,” Di Nardi said. “They don’t have to have a ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ themed party, but they can dabble in it, or ignore it completely. Basically, we wanted there to be an option for people who might be stuck for ideas, and also provide another way for other people that may not be affiliated with a student group to get involved with SPW.”