Draft:Quad Day at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Quad Day at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois Main Quad 2010

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Quad Day is a yearly tradition held on the Sunday immediately prior to the first day of instruction, as part of new student welcome week. Quad Day is a gathering of the University’s 1,000+ Registered Student Organizations as well as many fraternities and sororities on the Main Quad. Quad Day is currently managed by Student Org Development and Administration (SODA) under the University’s Student Success and Engagement Office of Student Affairs.

History

University Tensions

In the 1960s and 1970s, tensions were high between students and faculty at the University. The students protested the Vietnam War and believed staff were too controlling, whilst the faculty thought that the students were ruining the country, and imposed many rules to keep the students in place. Student gatherings would form often and lead to riots on the campus.

Preparations

In the spring of 1971, Dan Perrino, then Dean of the University’s Student Programs and Services and Professor of Music Education, decided something needed to change about the campus atmosphere. He had the idea to bring the campus together in a county fair atmosphere with food, music, and games, and spent the summer of 1971 with undergraduate student Willard Broom working to bring his idea to life. Broom stayed on campus over the summer to help; planning events, reserving the quad, and sending out invitations to faculty, administration, student organizations, and state officials for the first Quad Day. The initial purpose of Quad Day was to ease tensions and create respect between students and staff, and introduce new students to all the resources the University has to offer in a creative and fun way.

There was initial pushback from some administrators upon hearing about the idea for Quad Day, as they were adamant that Quad Day would lead to riots from the students, due to its nature of being a large student gathering during this time. This included the Illini Union director, who told his employees to not engage with the event. The assistant director, however, disobeyed his orders and supplied Perrino with chairs and tables to help set up Quad Day.

The First Quad Day

Quad Day 2018

The first Quad Day was held by the office of Student Programs and Services (SPAS) on Friday, September 10th, 1971, as a part of new student welcome week. It began at 11:30 am with the playing of the Altgeld chimes, and continued through 1:00 am Saturday, September 11th, ending with a soul band.

Some of the activities included in the first Quad Day were a volleyball match between the Chancellor’s office and the Dean of Students’ office–which the Chancellor’s office would win–a talent show, rock concert, imaginary game of tug-of-war, and a folk festival, with a total turnout of approximately 7,000 students. There were over 50 student booths for promoting clubs, and a performance from the Marching Illini and university cheerleaders.

John Scouffas, chair of the University Senate Committee on Student Discipline, sang the opera song “Granada”, and received cheers from the crowd after hitting a difficult high-note during the song.

Chancellor Jack Peltason challenged the student body in a yo-yo competition, and proceeded to win. He would lose the following year to the Fine and Applied Arts Dean Jack McKenzie, before both men would stop competing after being beaten in 1974 by counseling psychology Ph.D. candidate John T. Hardin.

Music performances included Dan Perrino's Medicare 7, 8, or 9 jazz band, rock concerts sponsored by Star Course, and soul music by the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center.

Political party members fighting on both sides of the ballot attended the first Quad Day, as well as members of the Illinois State Board of Education and Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon.

The first Quad Day was ultimately a success for the University's goal of bringing together students and faculty. Thus, it was continued in the following years.

Traditions

Quad Day at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has led to many different traditions over time, with differing levels of success.

Inspired by the yo-yo competition, from the 1970s until the mid 1990s, many new contests formed. Some of these included frisbee accuracy, limbo dancing, bubble gum-blowing, balloon bursting, kite flying, tricycle racing, slam dunking, a home run derby, and paper airplane flying.

Main Quad and Illini Union

Other activities included face painting, outdoor bowling, karaoke, a slip ‘n’ slide, a dunk tank, and a water balloon toss.

Performances on the Quad during the 1970s included taekwondo, karate, dancers, the Marching Illini, and medieval combat demonstrations from the Society for Creative Anachronism.

During the 1970s and 1980s, in a tradition that came to be known as Corn on the Quad, the student helper group Illini Guides used a 1923 steam engine to boil over 100,000 ears of corn to give to students on the Main Quad during Quad Day.

In its early years, Quad Day was utilized as a place of discussion for students and staff, as well as university trustees and state legislators. On Quad Day 1975, Governor Dan Walker would come to the Illinois campus, where he would take part in a frisbee accuracy contest, eat corn, talk to both the College Democrats and College Republicans, and inform students he was opposed to raising tuition for the 1976-1977 academic year.

During the 1980s, Quad Day became closer to a carnival, as events included torch throwers, jugglers, unicyclists, javelin throwing, shot put, and olympic shooting sports.

Some Quad Day traditions didn’t last for long, including an attempt by university police nicknamed Operation Identification, which, as part of a national effort, had the goal of engraving students’ bikes with their social security number in an attempt to return future stolen goods and stop theft. A campus celebrity relay race, a hot air balloon launch that had a balloon crash, and a cotton ball carrying contest didn’t last long either.

In the 1990s, Quad Day was repurposed to go from being discussion-based to how it's known today: a gathering of the University’s student organizations in booths along the Main Quad. Some traditions during this time were a cappella, improv, gymnastics, and swing dancers.

In the early 2000s, student editors at the Daily Illini would publish opinions pieces of how to get the most out of Quad Day, and why it should be avoided altogether, due to the humidity and crowdedness of the Main Quad.

Some of the traditions today include a martial arts demonstration, gymnastics show, Marching Illini performance, and dancers.

Organizers Over Time

Quad Day allowed for the collaboration of many departments that traditionally wouldn’t interact, and the task of organizing has been traded between many different groups over time.

The first Quad Day in 1971 was managed by University Student Programs and Services under Dan Perrino. In 1974, Illini Union Student Activities and campus recreation were put in charge of coordinating the event. Other groups including student honorary societies, cultural houses, the alumni association, and interfraternity and panhellenic councils helped organize Quad Day under the Illini Union. In 2020, the Illini Union gave the role of organizing Quad Day to the Student Success and Engagement Office.

Today

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Student Success and Engagement Office opted to make Quad Day completely virtual, building an interactive website for students to engage with clubs through zoom meetings. In the years following, Quad Day was moved back in person as a series of booths for new students to browse.

Over 600 booths make up Quad Day today.