Expectations high following misfortune in 2023
Last year, in what was a shock to the Wabash community, the marquee event of Homecoming, Chapel Sing, was a day marked by injury and frustration. Chapel Sing stands alone as the star event of Homecoming Week, representing the collective efforts of freshmen and upperclassmen working together to learn the longest fight song in the nation, Old Wabash.
While normally a day filled with the joyous cheers of freshmen wearing white t-shirts freshly painted with a scarlet W (and maybe a little more joyful from the brothers of Sigma Chi), Chapel Sing 2023 resulted in the injury of one Wabash man and the broken dreams of many others who would not earn their W’s that day.
However, after such a mark was left on Homecoming in 2023, the Sphinx Club has made moves to ensure that this year proves to meet all of the expectations of Homecoming, and in some cases, exceed them. This has primarily been headed by Vice President of the Sphinx Club, Connor Craig ’25, who has worked since this summer in preparation for the 2024 Homecoming celebration.
“Nothing’s going to change with the festivities themselves,” said Craig. “I’m just hoping that by making things more clear, by having open communication between the student body, administration and the Sphinx Club, people will be more excited about Homecoming and can get further involved.”
This year will not see much change to the scheduling of Homecoming – in fact, every event that was held in the past Homecoming will be making a reappearance – but the manner in which Chapel Sing and the Homecoming royalty charity will be run this year have been overhauled.
Chapel Sing’s reorganization was driven by a reevaluation on the priorities of Homecoming following Chapel Sing in 2023, in which a Beta pledge was physically injured and a singular club member gave three separate freshmen X’s, which disallowed them from the chance to earn a W.
“An important part of homecoming is that students should have a memorable experience through the rich history of tradition,” said Jake Weber ’25, secretary of the Sphinx Club. “But that can only be achieved by keeping safety as our top priority.”
By creating a variety of documents that list expectations and enforce new rules about Chapel Sing, the Sphinx Club hopes that this year’s Chapel Sing won’t have the same errors that it did in 2023.
“I’ve brought upon conditions on things such as when someone should be getting an X or when they should be getting pulled,” said Craig. “If something were to happen again, we’ve also brought upon consequences for the people involved, since there was a bit of a gray area last year.”
This year, rather than giving every club member the power to individually give a student an X, this power will be restrained by the executive board of the Sphinx Club.
“We’ve implemented a two-witness rule,” said Craig. “Only two members of our executive board will have Sharpies, and that’s it. When someone gets pulled by a Sphinx Club member, one of the executive board members will quiz them and will only give an X if there is a clear mess up.”
Weber, as an executive member of the Sphinx Club, will be one of those with a sharpie during Chapel Sing. Unlike last year, in which a member intentionally marked multiple Xs, Weber assured that the current Sphinx Club does not follow that mentality.
“No one in the Sphinx Club wants to see students walk away with an X,” said Weber. “But if you don’t know our fight song you leave us no choice.”
Another change to Chapel Sing is the length of time – students won’t have to wait as long for results, as the Sphinx Club will be using automated spreadsheets to process scores instantaneously, which will also point out any irregularities in scoring. This has been a point of frustration in the past, as Chapel Sing would often go over time as Club members crunched scores by hand in the Chapel.
“We’ve changed the judging process to online, via spreadsheet,” said Craig. “There won’t be a delay, and there will be a standard deviation function, so if there are outliers, we can point them out and question them.”
Craig has also been proactive in ensuring that everyone will get a fair chance to sing the fight song, regardless of any limitations.
“I’ve been collecting a list of international students who may have language barriers and other students who may have situational conditions, such as a student who just had vocal surgery,” said Craig. “The last thing I want is a student getting pulled when they’re not singing loud enough when they physically can’t.”
While the restructuring of Chapel Sing may seem flashier to many students, Craig and many fellow Club members have worked to also improve the philanthropy aspect of Homecoming, which historically has been limited to only the Homecoming Royalty event.
“I want to raise as much money as possible,” said Craig. “So, we decided to stretch the fundraiser out to an entire week.”
By making the Homecoming Royalty event the crowning moment of a weeklong fundraiser, the Club is hoping to raise more resources for the charity selected this semester – Meals on Wheels.
“I am pleased with The Sphinx Club stepping forward to help us,” said Pat Stull, Director of the Crawfordsville branch of Meals on Wheels. “They are reaching out to the community they are living in. Funds raised help to pay for client’s meals, who sometimes cannot pay due to medical costs or income problems.”
Even with the charity aspect of homecoming being a week long, students can still look forward to seeing Homecoming royalty walking around during the day of the Homecoming day itself. Craig hopes that this extension of the philanthropic element of Homecoming will lead to more community involvement as a whole by the Sphinx Club.
“I feel pretty inspired about doing this and more community work,” said Craig. “I plan on doing a lot more events like this.”
All of these changes to homecoming – both to Chapel Sing and the philanthropy – have been the result of many weeks of work by Craig and his subcommittees of Club men, such as the philanthropy committee and public relations committee. But Craig is quick to acknowledge that all of this work towards change is going towards a timeless Wabash tradition.
“It’s been hard to be selfless during this process; I’ve put all this time and planning into [Homecoming],” said Craig. “But recognition isn’t something I can expect, the expectation is that Homecoming runs well. For me, if I see smiling freshmen after they get their W or people having a good time during tailgates, or brothers having fun making floats and banners, that’s my metaphorical pat on the back.”