Vanderbilt Valentine’s – Stambaugh Style
Hey guys!
So if you’ve been reading my blogs recently, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been going on a lot about the HAC. Please bear with me – I’ve got one more post and then I’ll move on to something else (maybe)! But given the Valentines timing, I just have to blog about why I love my StamFam and my HAC.
A quick recap for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about: each House on the Commons has a House Advisory Council consisting of a student President, Vice President, PR Chair, House Service Commissioner and Floor Reps. In addition, each house has a Faculty Head of House and Resident Advisors. See here for more info.
One of the many roles of the HAC is to organize House events, promoting House cohesiveness and encouraging community spirit. One such example of this happened last week with our top secret Mission: Project Valentine…
At the crack of dawn (well, 8am… but on a Saturday though!) on Valentine’s Day, all of the HAC, including our fabulous Faculty Head, Alice (AlPal) Randall, and her husband, David, secretly gathered to decorate the House for Valentines and surprise all of our StamBros and StamBelles. We put up streamers, balloons, confetti and rose petals (all blue and white of course, as those are Stambaugh’s house colours) and distributed candy bags outside the doors of every resident.
Our creative RAs also made the Stambaugh crest out of blue roses in the lobby and it was stunning!
Having only joined the HAC last month, I was previously unaware of how much effort Alice, the RAs and the HAC go to to really make Stambaugh our real home. But now I’ve realized that it’s the little things that really make a difference, and seeing the smiles on the faces of my fellow Stambaugh residents when they discovered our surprise made me feel really blessed to be part of such a wonderful HAC.
On top of that, after all of our hard work decorating, AlPal and her husband took us out for brunch at a cool café as their treat. We managed to squish 9 of us around one table, shared ‘Stambaugh Secrets’ and bonded. I felt so loved and I really felt part of a family spearheaded by our Momma Bear AlPal.
Something AlPal said in our first HAC meeting of the year has stuck with me. She told us that the day that Stambaugh stops standing for something is that day she would step down as Faculty Head. But I hope that won’t happened any time soon, because right now, AlPal’s Stambaugh stands for us. And we stand by her.