Photos and Videos

September 2025

The Outdoor Club visited nearby Occooneechee Mountain for a Saturday noon hike. We enjoyed the view from the highest point in Orage County, which also clued us in to some fast moving inclement weather so we took the quick way down from the summit. (That also meant we had enough time to stop by Cook-Out before the vans were due back at school.)

Grilled Cheese Night with Royall was a blast! It got off to a bumpy start as we ran into two other halls having their own interhall activity in the PFM who... borrowed our griddles for their own Pancake Night plans. But once we got that sorted out, we decided, the more the merrier! We also appreciated have a sweet breakfast option for the folks who were waiting patiently for more hot sandwichs to come off the griddles. (The taste test results for grilled cheese made with butter vs. mayonaisse were mixed, at best, but I think some mayo-skeptics were surprised.)

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Above: SAB had its second annual Silent Disco, which goes to show that all students need for a great time is music, glowsticks, and a few uplights in the gym! Students could tune their headsets to three different playlists and they got to dance their hearts out for a couple of hours. The video shows how Silent Disco is a bit of a misnomer as the gym was filled with the sounds of shoe squeaking and people excitedly singing along to all three different songs playing at that time. My favorite part was hearing people excitedly yelling "go to green/red/blue!" and watching them frantically run back to the dance floor from the lobby when a favorite song of theirs came on.

Below: We had our first Koffeehaus of the year right before Fall Break. Koffeehaus is our student-led open mic night where you never know quite what to expect. There will definitely be a lot of singing, a good amount of piano/guitar playing, and a couple of performances by our resident rock band, Big Spoon. Big Spoon has been a fixture on campus for about four years, with new students joining up and taking on the mantle each year. (I've said it's like Menudo, which is a reference completely wasted on our students). But you might also see a wildly talented virtuoso violin performance, a person in a banana costume dancing to a meme, or a student acting out their favorite anime scenes/dances. This time, two folks from Fourth West got to show off their musical talents and the audience was spellbound!

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August 2025

As part of our hall agreement process, which we have been slowly building up to since our first meetings on Move-In Weekend, I asked each student to write down 3-5 things they need on hall to feel like they belong and can thrive on Fourth West. Then we broke into small groups to share those needs and aspirations for the hall and each small group had to come up with the top 3-5 things from their group discussion that touched on what everyone shared. The final agreement will be synthesized from those small groups' lists and we have a working draft of an agreement right now! We'll polish it up and get everyone's feedback and buy-in at our first hall meeting in September.

A program highlight from this month was our "Am I the Jerk?" discussion activity. Inspired by more modern takes on advice columns, I printed out stories of conflict where the posters were asking people to weigh on who was in the wrong. This sparked a lot of good discussion about how we could handle conflicts in our own lives and on hall/campus, how it is rarely too late to apologize when we've messed up, and how conflict can be opportunity, to have your voice heard, to have your needs met, and to get to know someone better.

The photos don't really do the organized chaos of our pancake night with First Hunt justice. Several of us got to live out our line cook fantasies and yell out "behind!" and "yes, chef!"

Flapjack flipping is often a lesson in humility, but Jacob was all smiles the whole time.

Aspiring 'floss boss' Christian got to try his hand at cotton candy twirling at an SAB Friday Funday event.

The more professional convocation photo is at the bottom of this section, but they really insisted on a group photo where they're doing the Fourth West hand symbol. Watching them trying to frantically teach the juniors (and some of the seniors) how to do it while other halls were waiting their turn for this primo photo opp spot.

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