MEREDITH RODRIGUEZ
Assistant Living Editor
Pauley Paradise, Saved By DeBell, White Lilies, Pengilly Penguins, Phillips Flotilla – butcher paper, tape and puff paint can stretch far in a freshman hall. With limited media and a shoestring budget, resident advisors transformed bare lobbies into elaborate lands in hopes of drawing residents together.
Ideas for hall themes emerged for resolute community builders, even if slowly.
“It was hard to find a theme to go along with White,” said Erin Bundra, RA of White Hall. RAs traditionally play off the hall name for the year’s theme. “White House had already been done, White Wedding would just be kind of creepy, and honestly, anything else kind of sounded racist.”
Bundra and her co-RA Kari Miller opted for White Lilies, in line with the Sisterhood of the White Lilies and a tropical jungle theme.
“We were thinking that freshman year is so crazy. It’s like going through a jungle,” Miller said. “Plus, white lilies represent something pure and beautiful, and that’s what women are.”
Nearby, under the juristiction of RA’s Jackie Eaton and Wendy Tran, Pauley Hall became a tropical paradise. Tran and Eaton said they decided to keep Pepperdine’s international students particularly in mind when choosing their theme.
Eaton, who came to Pepperdine as an international student in the year 2005, said she understood the shock it can be to adjust to college life along with an alien culture, so with the aid of their christened theme — Pauley Paradise — they encouraged their residents to recognize that they all come from different places. Their hall question plays off a world map in the main lobby: “Where is your paradise?”
With this question a spiritual message resounded, along with the message that their hall was meant to be a sort of paradise in itself.
“Hopefully people will … ultimately think of heaven (as their paradise),” Tran said. “In the end we also wanted the girls to get the message that Pauley could also be their paradise, a place of retreat.”
Freshman year, often recalled as a cacophony of roommate conflict, broken quiet hours and middle-school drama, makes their goal a relevant, even if lofty one.
Finally, as with many RAs, their theme was a springboard off of which they built some dorm events, and ultimately, dorm pride.
“You try to create dorm unity with it,” Eaton said. “We celebrated a ‘holly polly Christmas,’” for example. Some of their enthused residents even suggested they paint the rock in honor of their holiday event.
The RAs of Pengilly, Tyler Mason and Ian Isbell, understand the importance of dorm unity. Their idea turned freshman year into a year of “penguin pride” for 50 boys.
A penguin made out of butcher paper became the medium for their dorm “initiation.” RAs Ian Isbell and Mason made their residents sign the belly of the penguin at their first Community Living Orientation Meeting (CLOM), after which each resident announced what they were most excited about for their freshman year.
“It was awesome,” Mason said. “From day one we had the pride. It was cool. The guys kept going with it,” Mason said. One of his residents even ventured online and bought penguin posters for his room.
What induced the idea for the pride-building penguin?
“Honestly, it was the dumbest thing ever.” Mason said. “It rhymed with Pengilly.”
The penguin was named animal of the year by VH1. Besides the fact that “The March of the Penguins” hit box offices,
“We like to think that we contributed to that (recognition),” Mason quipped.
Like Pauley Paradise, the RAs of Pengilly build events around their theme. Instead of decorating a tree for Christmas, however, they’ve turned to a sport — a penguin plummage.
For male dorms, water sports and penguins aren’t the only things that can build community.
RAs Josh Lockrow and Charlie Puttonen have collected some fancy equipment for their lobby. Aside from their hall’s boat theme — Phillips Flotilla — constructed in brown butcher paper, some more elaborate décor furbishes the lobby: a big screen television and a poker table.
“We are hoping that it will encourage people out of their suites into the main lobby and allow people to meet each other instead of just staying isolated,” Lockrow said.
And what do residents make of the hours their RAs put into posting butcher paper around the halls?
“At the least I think it shows the residents that [we] care about the dorm,” Lockrow said.
01-19-2006