The weekend of Oct. 16-18 marked Lawrence University’s annual Fall Festival. From sports events to gallery openings, the campus was abundant with activities for students and their loved ones.
Sustainable Lawrence University Garden (SLUG) hosted a harvest fest, offering students dinner made from local food and produce from the garden.
Junior and SLUG member Gillian Etherington highlighted that the event went well and attendance was high.
“It is always cool to see who comes, especially because most of the people there have never set foot in the garden,” began Etherington. “It was a very warm and fuzzy time with a lot of good feels.”
The harvest fest offered a variety of food from homemade biscuits to pies. SLUG members ended up running out of forks due to the high turnout.
“I ended up getting [to the harvest fest] a little late and a sole cookie was left,” said senior Jocelyn Harris, confirming that attendees were plentiful and hungry.
“We made do and shared [utensils] or just used our hands,” admits Etherington.
SLUG members find it vital for fellow students to know how accessible the garden is, in case they want to volunteer.
“[It is also important to know about SLUG] because this way, students can know where their food is coming from as we sell a lot of stuff to Bon Appétit,” said Etherington.
Fall Festival continued throughout the weekend, offering soccer games, a football game and a question and answer session with President Mark Burstein. Burstein was joined by representatives from a variety of campus offices like Campus Life, Diversity Center, Center for Teaching and Learning, Technology Services and Wellness Center.
In his remarks, Burstein informed a largely freshmen kin audience about his goals for Lawrence in the upcoming year.
“It comes down to three things: enhancing academic offerings, physical renewal and becoming more affordable,” said Burstein.
Burstein shared his approaches to tackling these goals. Namely, Burstein is working with Campus Life to focus on how to cut costs on utilities and allocating those funds elsewhere.
Freshmen families addressed their concerns to Burstein who facilitated conversations ranging from Lawrence’s Career Services to becoming a full need institution to tuition increases.
“The past year has been the lowest academic increase year,” said Burstein. “And we hope to sustain that low increase of a little over two percent.”
Burstein ended his remarks by assuring audience members that administrative staff is working hard “behind the scenes on all the stuff that runs the little city called Lawrence.”