Nicole Stone/ Assistant News Director
Traditionally, homecoming is a week long event that welcomes alumni back to their universities and celebrates the unified achievements of the university community. Gabriel Tejeda, assistant director of administration for the Homecoming Council, says homecoming at FIU is no different.
“Homecoming is a time in which we celebrate why we attend FIU and show our pride to the community– to show what FIU is all about and why our students chose to be Panthers,” Tejeda said in an email to Student Media. “FIU has so much to offer to our students and I believe we do have a right to celebrate all our school does for our students, community and even the world.”
The Homecoming Council, according to Tejeda, expects 10,000 to 12,000 students will partake in the festivities this year, with the majority of the attendance being owed to Panthermonium which took place last Saturday, Oct. 28.
However, many students who spoke to Student Media were unaware that homecoming events had been underway since Thursday, Sept.14 with the ‘50 Days Till Homecoming’ event at BBC.
Sophomore transfer student and chemistry major, Waldis Peña, said he hasn’t been to any events so far, nor does he particularly care about homecoming.
“I had no idea it was really happening until I started seeing the signs… It hasn’t caught my eye,” he said.
Similarly, freshman Maria Cepero, a marketing major, hadn’t attended any events yet because she didn’t know there were any. Homecoming, Cepero said, needed to be more publicized in order to catch her interest.
Alexandra Vanegas, a freshman majoring in international business, like Cepero, was also unaware about the events and felt that they needed more promotion.
The Homecoming Council, Tejeda said, has a team dedicated to publicizing the events to panthers via social media and through informational flyers. This year, according to Tejeda, the council utilized some of the polling methods on Instagram and Twitter to interact with students.
“Our main connection with our students is through our social media accounts,” Tejeda said. “This year thanks to the advancement of technology, we tried to be more interactive with new polling features on Instagram and Twitter that would make the students actually engage with us.”
Other students, like Justine Goubert, a senior majoring in history and religious studies, are just not interested in participating. She has never been to a homecoming event, she said, because she’s not interested in parties.
“The whole thing is that it’s a big party. Homecoming is essentially just a giant concert,” she said. “I feel like that’s really directed towards people who enjoy those kinds of things so something completely different would be cool.”
But students who aren’t attracted to parties can still enjoy homecoming through other campus events, according to Tejeda, who gave the Panther Prowl Comedy show featuring comedian Jay Pharoah, which took place Wednesday, Nov. 1, or the Panther’s Got Talent talent show happening today, Nov. 2, at 5:30 p.m. in the Ocean Bank Convocation Center as examples.
A freshman international business major, Jeniffer Almanza, attended the last football game and said she found the event through Instagram. She is planning on attending the homecoming game this Saturday against University of Texas at San Antonio, as well as the tailgate.
“I think it’s a fun event for freshmen and incoming students. It’s a good experience for them to get out there and be more social,” Almanza said.
Featured photo by Shivv Panchal
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