By Lindsay Haislip
News Editor
A record-setting number of Washington College students attended this year’s Birthday Ball, which transformed the Lifetime Fitness Center into a wonderland of living statues and whimsical decorations.
Last Saturday evening, approximately 1,800 students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of the College gathered in celebration of George Washington’s Birthday.
Co-Director of Birthday Ball, Katie Johnson said, “We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from both faculty and students, which is great,” she said. “That’s what we wanted. We were hoping to make it a more inclusive event for the entire campus, and it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun,” said Johnson.
A lot went into the many decorations and festivities associated with the celebration. “When you bring it all together, I think it was a successful event,” said Director of Student Activities, Emmanuel Lalande.
The Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass theme truly came to life with the help of many people involved in the planning process.
“I appreciate the hard work that students put into it; Katie Johnson, Michell Firmin, Ed Hoegg, Andrew Antonio, SGA, SEB, the rowing team, soccer team, swimming team, individual students, the Birthday Ball committee. It was just a whole production of people that helped put this together, and I greatly appreciate it,” said Lalande.
Lalande also said that they ended up scaling back some parts of Birthday Ball, because they ran out of time or decided it might be too overwhelming, but they hope to be able to use them again next year.
One of the best parts for Lalande was seeing how much students were enjoying themselves.
“Seeing the students enjoy themselves is the best part of this job. Seeing the very few (but there were some) faculty and staff enjoying themselves is another satisfaction, and alumni, and of course friends coming to the event and actually seeing them enjoying themselves and letting lose for at least an hour or two was a great satisfaction,” said Lalande.
Another very exciting aspect of Birthday Ball was the cake. The cake was fitting for the theme along with a replica of George Washington’s head adorning the top. It was made by the very well known bakery, Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey (famous from its TLC TV series, “Cake Boss”).
“‘Cake Boss’, Buddy Valastro, wanted to attend, but he couldn’t,” said Lalande. “This was around the time that his wife was delivering their baby, so he wasn’t able to attend, but it would have been an extra touch. Back in October when we went up there to New Jersey, they were very excited to do it for us, and I think they did a great job,” he said.
Lalande’s only regret from this year’s event was that he did not meet his goal of 2,200 in attendance. “This event is supposed to be a celebration of George Washington, who happens to be our namesake of the College, and I think it’s important that more faculty, staff, and alumni attend,” he said.
Out of the approximately 1,800 who did come out, only a very small number were faculty and staff members. “I think if some more faculty, staff, and alumni had come, I would have reached that,” he said in reference to his goal of 2,200 people.
“I’m not too sure what happened in the past,” Lalande said, “but in order for us to improve for the future, community is the number one thing, and us coming together as a community for Birthday Ball in celebration of the person who our college is named after is important. Not many faculty and staff attending was my biggest disappointment, but those who did attend, I appreciate it greatly,” he said.
From a Public Safety perspective, the event was a success as well, according to Director of Public Safety Jerry Roderick.
“It was a good event,” said Roderick. “Birthday Ball is always one of our larger events, so it does make for a busy evening, but all in all it went fairly well,” he said.
The shuttle service that Public Safety coordinated for the event turned out to be a big success. “A lot of the employees of the college stepped up and provided their time to provide safe transportation for people to be able to come and go from the event in the Chestertown area. It was a very successful night in that regard,” said Roderick.
“An enormous amount of people took advantage of it,” said Roderick. “We got a lot of very positive feedback from students that used it, thank you notes for providing that service. It really allowed people to have a good time and be responsible in how they came and went to and from the event. It’s a great service to our students and the community,” he said.
“Nobody got arrested, and for the most part the crowd was very civilized,” Roderick said. “Students were very festive and appreciative of Public Safety being there and keeping it a safe event for them. All in all I would say it was a good event,” he said.
March 4, 2011
Volume LXXXI Issue 17