Despite an unwelcome appearance by an afternoon cloudburst, the Interfraternity Council held its first Friday afternoon community hour on Clocktower Quad last Friday.
Under darkening skies, students gathered in groups on the quad to socialize and listen to music by Paul Jeffrey and the Duke Jazz Ensemble. Some sat at tables to eat the abundant free food, while others drank the only beverage in sight: soda served from portable soda machines.
"This was a great start," said Trinity senior Lex Wolf, IFC president. "Any time that you have the challenge of a first-time event and bad weather and have that many people, you have to rate the event a success." The event, which was planned for 4 p.m. until 6 p.m. on Friday, was cut short by a torrential downpour around 5 p.m.
But Wolf said that the threat of bad weather didn't prevent a large number of people from attending. "We were told we had enough food for 1,000 people and that was gone in 20 minutes," he said.
Trinity junior LaRonda Peterson, Duke student government vice-president for community interaction, who was involved in planning the event, said she was pleasantly surprised by the turn-out.
In the wake of significant changes in the University's social scene, many billed the community hour as an effective way for students to meet new people.
Trinity senior Kara Cerveny, a resident advisor in Pegram dormitory, said she tried to encourage her freshmen to attend the event.
"It is such a great opportunity to meet upperclassmen," Cerveny said. "It is another social opportunity that was never there before."
Cerveny said, however, that there were more upperclassmen than freshmen at Friday's event due to its proximity to upperclassman dorms.
"It might be more convenient for upperclassmen to just leave their dorms and it might be harder for freshmen who have already gone home to East Campus," she said.
Trinity freshman Vanessa Lehr was one student who did venture to West Campus for the community hour. Lehr said that she found out about the event from one of the flyers circulated by IFC last week and came to West to find out more about it.
"It was a very friendly atmosphere and I had a chance to meet some people," she said.
In the future, Wolf said that attracting freshman will be a greater priority. "That is probably a group we should focus more energy on," he said.
Wolf said the IFC would consider holding a community hour on East Campus if the details could be worked out.
Faculty and administrators are also a target group. "We will now begin to get mailings out to administrators and try and work with the Faculty Associates Program to get faculty more involved," Wolf said.
IFC currently has enough money to host another five community hours this semester and will attempt to schedule a community hour for the next five Friday afternoons, Wolf said.
"We are trying to make this into a new tradition at Duke," he said.
Funds for the community hours comes from various sources. Last April, the IFC won a Philip Morris grant from the President's Common Ground Fund to sponsor six afternoon events.
IFC has also received $5,000 from the Office of Student Affairs and another $2,000 from the President's Office, Wolf said. The cost of running each community hour is approximately $2,000, Wolf said.
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