Administrators, Staff Join Students to Show Their Triton Pride During Spirit Week

Ioana Patringenaru | January 28, 2008

Vice Chancellor Penny Rue (far right) and other administrators and staff members in her office dressed up and decorated for Spirit Week.

Click here to view a slideshow of Spirit Week.

Students decked out RIMAC Arena in blue and gold. Some painted their chests and faces. Many more cheered and danced. Vice Chancellor Penny Rue donned a crown and a trident.

Last week was Spirit Week at UCSD and the whole campus got into the act. Administrators and staff members especially joined in the fun, decorating their offices, dressing up in blue and gold UCSD gear and making up poems and cheers. Thirty departments throughout campus took part in the first-ever Spirit Week office decorating contest. The office of Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Penny Rue took the top prize. The music department came in second and the office of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox placed third.

Students, student judges and student government were really enthused by the staff’s response, said Gary Ratcliff, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Life. “Administrators seemed very excited to be part of the contest,” said Associated Students President Marco Murillo. The contest’s winner was decided by popular acclaim during a pep rally. Many staff members and administrators turned out of the event, said Lauren Weiner, director of Associated Students Administration.

“It really added a sense of community,” she said.

Rue’s office bested all others. First, to enter the office, judges had to cross a barrier made out of butcher paper, which proclaimed “We’ve got spirit, yes, we do, if you’ve got spirit, run on through.” Inside the office, the UCSD fight song greeted visitors. Then Vice Chancellor Rue, wearing a toga, a crown and a trident, read a poem about Triton spirit, which she had written herself for the occasion. “It was very spirited,” said Cynthia Davalos, Rue’s special assistant.

One of the decorations in Chancellor Marye Anne Fox's office.

Everyone in the office, including Davalos, wore crowns and hand-made tridents. The whole space was decked out with gold and blue balloons and streamers. A banner notified everyone that they were entering Triton Headquarters. “It was a good time for us to bond as an office and decorate,” Davalos said of the contest. Staff members implemented every idea that was suggested, she added. “If it was blue and gold and showed a Triton, we went with it.”

Spirit Week is one of the campus’ oldest traditions and has been around for at least 23 years. Other activities include a pep rally and an eight-part spirit competition between the campus’ six colleges. The weeklong celebration culminated Friday with two basketball games pitting UCSD against San Francisco State University. A record crowd of nearly 4,000 turned out for the games at RIMAC.

This year, administrators wanted to bring Triton spirit to the heart of campus, Ratcliff said. So they came up with the office decorating contest, which involved a wide variety of departments, from the Registrar, to Financial Aid, to the office of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox. The idea was to get departments who work with students involved.

Students showed off their spirit during two basketball games Friday night.

Ratcliff and a team of students and staff members judged the contest. They selected five finalists. The contest’s winner was then decided by popular acclaim during a pep rally. The best contestants were able to tie in their office’s mission with their decorations, Ratcliff said. The Financial Aid Office handed out Triton bucks. The Registrar’s Office displayed a 10-foot Triton that was holding a diploma and surfing. At Academic Computing and Telecommunications, decorations were made out of wires and King Triton held a phone instead of a trident.

After the success of last week’s contest, Ratcliff is already planning for next year. The campus will have to beef up the decorating kit that it provided for departments, he said. Judging will have to take place over two days, since so many offices took part. “We’re definitely going to do it again,” he added.