Photo by Bei Jia Viggiano ‘28
Precious Biney and Andrea Kekula tabled outside of the Oktoberfest celebration in Blanchard’s Great Room; they are raising money for the College.
BY BEI JIA VIGGIANO ’28
PUBLISHER
Halloween at Mount Holyoke has provided no shortage of fun, spooky events for the community.
On Friday, Oct. 30, Williston Library and Dwight Hall hosted a Candy Crawl from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., which included the Circulation Desk, MEWS, the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, Archives and Special Collections, the Weissman Center for Leadership, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the Miller Worley Center for the Environment.
LITS also held a Halloween Virtual Reality Spooktacular from 3-5 p.m. in Williston 418. Meanwhile, Kendall Sports and Dance Complex hosted a Volleyball Costume Contest Match at 6 p.m.
There was Halloween Cookie Decorating from 7:30-8:30 p.m. in the Great Room, brought by the College’s Art Society. Archives and Special Collections led a Haunted Mount Holyoke Tour from 8-9 p.m. in Dwight Hall, while Bellatrix, Renegades and Autosave held their annual Get Your Geek On event from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. in The Great Room.
On Saturday, Oct. 31, the Dressage Team hosted a Halloween Horse Photoshoot from 1-4 p.m. at the Equestrian Center. Torrey Resident Advisors held Boos Without Booze from 4-6 p.m. in Torrey Hall, while Oktoberfest was brought by the 2027 Class Board in the Cochary Pub and the Great Room from 5-7 p.m.
The Class of 2027 Board is also currently running the Senior Campaign, for which they tabled outside of Oktoberfest in Blanchard. Class Board Treasurer Andrea Kekula ’27 and Class Board Head Agent Precious Biney ’27 spoke with Mount Holyoke News in an interview to discuss their mission for the campaign and why it is important for students and alumni to consider donating.
“The senior campaign is just a way … seniors can invest back into the school community,” Kekula explained. Kekula gave the example of donating to “a department or area that you feel helped you throughout your four years.”
“The senior campaign is just a way... seniors can invest back into the school community.”
“We’re advertising Senior Campaign to seniors and encouraging them to donate to specific designations they want,” Biney said. “They can donate to international students. They can donate to scholarship aids. They can donate to Lynk. They can donate to any parts of the campus that has helped them.”
“For me, I really want to donate into first-gen and international students,” Kekula continued. “A lot of my friends are international students. Although I’m a domestic student, I did also spend a lot of my formative years outside of the country, specifically in Ghana, so I understand the struggles of having to navigate a new space, especially if you’re in your teens or coming to college.”
Kekula explained that students “can donate to Community of Belonging, DEI, any department on campus, any faculty. They can donate to a specific person in the bio department, in any place you want to donate. It’s a chance for you, and also a chance for seniors, to invest in the future of Mount Holyoke.” Kekula continued, “I think Mount Holyoke is just trying to see participation and not the amount of dollars you donate to the campus. And you can specify if you want your money to be invested or to be used currently.”
“Those are some of the areas I want to donate into,” Kekula concluded. “What is very important about this campaign is that you have the choice to show where your money goes. Also, we do not look at dollar amounts. So even if it’s one dollar, we’re gonna have several more of these events where we’re going to campaign and table. … If you give a dollar each time, your money adds up.”
Students who donate 20 dollars or more are given a beer mug with the Class of 2027 logo.
The last two events of the holiday were the Monsters Ball, hosted by the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra at Chapin Auditorium from 8-9:30 p.m., and the gRAVEYard Party, hosted by the Office of Student Engagement and Belonging at the Cochary Pub and the Great Room from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. The first 100 students received a free drink or mocktail, according to promotional materials for the event.
The final event of the weekend was on Sunday, Nov. 1, when the South West African North African Culture Club held Spooky Stories from -8 p.m. at Pratt Fire Pit.
Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27 contributed fact-checking.
