This year’s homecoming football game will fall on Saturday, Oct. 20. Every year, Southern Miss’ SGA facilitates a week filled with homecoming festivities leading up to the homecoming football game that Saturday. The week’s festivities include competitions among on-campus teams that are made up by Greek Life, Lucky Day, Honors College and many other groups on campus. This year, SGA has proposed amending some of the homecoming week rules.
The proposed changes to Southern Miss’ homecoming week include having a less involved social media portion of the competition and exchanging the “pomped” standing lawn displays for banners that would hang in the Eagle Walk on the day of the homecoming game. Each team would also have a financial budget, the winning team would be the special entertainment for the following year and the Karaoke Night portion of the competition will be replaced by SMAC’s Talent Show.
Senior communications major and SGA President McKenna Stone explained the reasons for the new competition changes.
“Last year following homecoming, we received a lot of feedback from students who participated in homecoming, especially within Greek Life, that they were not satisfied with the competition aspect,” Stone said.
“They felt as if they were spending a lot of time, too much time in fact, on this competition when they needed to prioritize school work, mental health, sleep, emotional stability and etcetera. They felt like they were spending so much time on this competition aspect that they were no longer having fun. And that is what homecoming really is about—having fun, bringing the community together, having school spirit and connecting students with alumni.”
Stone continued to explain that the goals of the proposed changes were to make the competition more equal. The SGA also wanted to ensure that homecoming would not be as time consuming as it has been in past years.
“I think SGA is doing a great job of listening to the needs of the student body and their homecoming needs,” senior psychology major Peyton Czerwonka said. “They aren’t making a big deal of it to the majority of the student body as a whole, though. However, I think that more people should be involved with the changes.”
SGA will also hold optional events throughout homecoming week, such as having inflatable bounce houses one day for students to play on throughout the day and a party one night at the fountain in Shoemaker Square.
Given that the College PanHellenic Council makes up the largest portion of homecoming competitors, the SGA is allowing each team to cast their vote on the aforementioned proposals, excluding the first and last.
The decisions will be announced on an unknown future date.
