Kendall College of Arts & Sciences welcomes back students, faculty, friends and canines
Kendall College of Arts & Sciences held a Welcome Back Cookout for faculty, students and everyone in between on Sept.15, this past Friday from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., . Luckily this cookout wasn’t limited to Arts and Science students so anyone was able to attend and enjoy the free food. Lots of people brought their kids and their dogs out to enjoy the fun. The school’s unofficial mascot, Goldie, made an appearance as well ahead of the opening of Goldie’s Grounds on Monday.
The setup for the event was very thoroughly planned out. The event was set up on the top right of the Old U, right outside of Tyrrell Hall, underneath several tall trees providing much needed shade. There were tables outside and underneath the white tent, where the buffet style table of food and servers were located. Each of them had either a decorative flower jar or a giant basket full of different types of baked goods such as brookies, lemon bars and cookies of all sorts like chocolate peanut butter, pecan pie and more! (Shout out to whoever put the frosting on each of the TU cookies because they put a lot of work into getting the cursive letters just right.) The DJ from this year’s orientation After-Glow Party was back at TU to bring the music to the barbecue! There was a table of free Kendall College stickers and free white tee shirts (hopefully no one accidentally stained their new shirt with hamburger grease or condiments).
The menu was surprisingly extensive with hamburgers, mega-sized hot dogs and vegan Beyond Meat burgers for attendees who were less inclined to eat beef, with lots of different condiments people could add to their burgers like typical ketchup and mustard and less conventional condiments like Japanese barbecue sauce and guacamole squeeze bottles. There were sides like chip bags, potato salad, baked beans, ginger slaw and — the most interesting out of the options — purple deviled eggs, which are colored from beet juice. In my opinion, the purple deviled eggs were the best food option out of everything served that afternoon.
There were lots of games at the event as well; giant Connect Four, corn hole and ladder golf. Students had nothing but positive reviews for the afternoon. Graduate student Jasmin Kurien mentioned, “I didn’t know what to expect going into the event, but I was happy to see they had vegetarian options! The weather was great and it was a nice way to cap off a busy week.”
Fellow graduate student Aditi Verma stated, “I liked how it brought individuals from different spaces together because I met some pretty cool people.”
Transfer Junior Hannah Moua thought the dogs were the highlight of the afternoon, stating, “The dogs were all so sweet and I didn’t know that the color purple could make deviled eggs look so strangely fascinating.”
Even though the dinner was only a couple of hours, it was a very enjoyable event with just enough food, the right amount of cool weather (although near the end of the event it rose just a few degrees under blazing hot again) and tons of friends, faculty, kids and canines having a fun time.
