Dean welcomes CHaSS students at Light on the Hill
The College of Humanities and Social Sciences invited USU students to “Meet the Weirdos” at their second annual Light on the Hill event at the Old Main Hill Amphitheater on Monday night.
The theme for this year’s event stemmed from last year, when Dean John Allen enncouraged CHaSS students to try to “meet the weirdos.” The college decided to make it this year’s theme, said Natalie Smoot, assistant to the dean.
“One of Allen’s points is to go out and meet the weirdos… so we turned it into a campaign for A Light on the Hill,” said Smoot. “We thought it would be a fun theme for college students. Go meet the weirdos.”
In his speech, Allen encouraged students to get out of their boxes.
“As human beings we tend to aggregate to people like ourselves. College is the one place you don’t have to do that,” he said. “You get an opportunity to engage people who think differently, look differently, talk differently and eat different food. Engage them. I actually hope that you’ll open yourselves up.”
The purpose of the event was to welcome the students back from the summer and build a sense of the community among the college, Allen said.
“I really believe that if you build community, positive things come from that,” said Allen. “We have freshman here. We have sophomores, juniors and seniors. We wanted to first say you’re part of a community of scholars.”
Dean Allen said for him, the most enjoyable part of the night was seeing the freshmen come out and watch.
“They come up and they stand at the edges, they’ve got a card, and they thought they might come, but they don’t know anyone, and we go out and we say ‘Hi, my name is John Allen,'” he said.
During the event, CHaSS clubs had set up booths for others to see what they were about. As the sun set, students were invited to sit down at the amphitheater and listen to the speakers, which included ASUSU CHaSS Senator Trent Morrison, Dean Allen, and USU alumnus Grant Bulltail, an elder from the Crow Tribe of Montana.
Allen gave advice to new students, encouraging them to put effort into their education.
“Push yourself,” he said. “Don’t be a passive learner. Don’t just come into the class, take the notes, take the tests, and walk away. Challenge your professors. They like it. Challenge your peers. You’ll leave Utah State University with an entirely different education. Enjoy it. This is a fun time.”
Trent Morrison spoke about the joy he has found in CHaSS and how he wants to work hard to help the college himself.
“There are so many opportunities for students to get involved and that’s the reason why I’m here today,” he said. “I got involved with CHaSS council and I’m able to be here standing here representing the students and really working hard to make sure that we remain the best college on campus.”
The event is in its second year but the organizers are excited about the growth they have seen.
“We’ve doubled,” said Smoot, “We had 95 to 100 last year, and had over 200 (people attend) this year.”
– rmhenline@gmail.com