Last Wednesday, Sept. 7, campus was brimming with excitement. Students crowded the gazebo and surrounding campus areas from 1-3:30 p.m. to explore all that “I Love WSU Day” had to offer. Some of the highlights of the event included snow cones, a dunk tank, mini-golf, therapy dogs and brightly colored inflatables including a disco dome, axe-throwing, skee-ball and basketball. This event brought together more than 50 clubs and over two dozen campus partners to make it an even bigger event than last year!  

Tracy Rahim, the associate director of student activities, first created “I Love WSU Day”, previously “I Heart WSU Day”,  last year with the goal of welcoming students back to campus. This year, Rahim again spearheaded the planning and execution of “I Love WSU Day” with the goal of reconnecting students and the campus.

“Everyone wants to reconnect. Really what I stressed with our campus partners is, I want to have unique and fun activities and giveaways and it is not just a regular info-booth fair, but this is a way to engage with students,” Rahim said.

On that sunny Wednesday, students got together and participated in the event with smiles and snow cones. Adult and continuing education ran one of the most popular booths, the snow cone booth. Over the course of “I Love WSU Day” the adult and continuing education office went through 200 lbs. of ice and 700 cups.

Rahim also commented how “I Love WSU Day” was a great opportunity for students to learn about different groups and services offered at Winona State that they might not know about.    

“Being able to not only help get information out about the different areas on campus in a fun and creative way, but also for our students to reconnect with each other,” Rahim said.

Another popular attraction at the event was the life-size angry birds game that came complete with a giant slingshot, wooden blocks and the iconic green pigs. The warrior hub was behind this game, and George Micalone, the director of student union and activities, commented on how he was impressed by their creativity.

After two years of zoom classes and events, and then restricted and socially distanced celebrations, “I Love WSU Day” is a refreshing rejuvenation of Winona State’s campus life. Many students at the event expressed how they felt about all of the excitement.  

Student Senate President Malorie Olson said, “I think this is a really awesome event because it is a semi-club fair but it also includes different groups on campus. There are some colleges here, so I think it is a really great way for students to get involved that are not just clubs.”

Jensen Christensen, third-year student, majoring in cellular and molecular biology and president of the pre-vet club, talked about how great it is to have an in-person event like “I Love WSU Day” after missing out on them for a couple years.

 “As a freshman I didn’t have as many of these because I came during bigger COVID restrictions, so I didn’t get to group-out as much. And I am excited that more people get to group-out,” Christensen said. 

“I Love WSU Day” was a huge event that took lots of teamwork and coordination. Rahim commented that she is thankful for everyone that worked to make this community effort succeed, and that she hopes it will continue to grow in the future.