Staff Editorial

Though crowning a homecoming king and queen and parading them across campus before a football game may seem silly to students of our generation, Fall Festival weekend accentuates Lawrence’s need to create and protect new student traditions. They are what differentiates us from other colleges of our size and spirit. Though the Milwaukee-Downer College class colors are a nice gesture, the best traditions involve active participation, unifying the campus ever so briefly around an event or idea. The Great Midwest Trivia Contest and Ormsby Zoo Days are fantastic traditions that set us apart from other small liberal arts institutions and bring us together as a community through widespread involvement and playful competition.
This weekend, hundreds of parents and alumni will be flooding into campus trying to celebrate everything that is distinctive and unique about Lawrence, but nothing that is specific to us will take place this weekend. While it is a great idea to fundraise and celebrate the contributions from alumni and donors, but there’s no real student tradition to draw our parents to Appleton.
As a campus we should be taking pride in the traditions we do have and creating other meaningful experiences together. While we can share them with the greater Lawrence community, they should be unique to us as a campus because we created them not because they were created for us.