“Once a Blue Demon, always a Blue Demon”
Students may see this phrase on large banners hanging in Kelly Hall or from the elevator lobby in the DePaul Center and even massively displayed on the side of the Lewis Center. All these signs are just one part of a campus-wide plan to rebrand Homecoming Week into the all-inclusive Blue Demon Week Feb. 16-22.
A Blue Demon Week Partners committee emerged from an Affinity Task Force with the goal to make Homecoming an institution-wide effort. In an effort to turn it around – they started with the name.
SGA President Casey Clemmons said the committee found that students, like fourth-year lighting design major Bailey Rosa, associated homecoming with football and high school, which was problematic for a football-free university.
“I feel like a lot of schools have homecoming around their football season to bring fans home,” Rosa said. “I don’t feel like changing the name of it really matters. I don’t see a lot of alumni around which is what homecoming seems like it should be.”
Blue Demon Week Coordinator Emma Kolander, a sophomore, said the name change was a part of Vision 2018 and an effort to make the week not just a DAB event but a DePaul event.
“It’s really exciting that I got to be a part of the big decision,” Kolander said. “We’ve put a lot of time, a lot of effort into trying to put together a week ‘for students, by students’ [DAB’s motto]. We’re looking to make it a week of student-oriented events but also make it a DePaul-oriented event.”
One of the goals of Blue Demon Week is to link past and present Blue Demons. Last year was the first Blue Demon Day that allowed alumni across the nation to be connected through their attendance of the day’s men’s and women’s basketball games.
For alumni who cannot make it to Chicago, there are regional game watches for the men’s games being organized in 16 cities including Indianapolis, Boston, Denver and Washington, D.C. This year, the week will culminate with Blue Demon Day.
“The idea is that when you’re a student, you participate in Blue Demon Week and when you’re an alumnus you participate in Blue Demon Day and there’s that continuity between being a student and being an alumni and always feeling like you’re a part of the DePaul community,” Clemmons said.
An effort for unity on DePaul’s campus is one that sophomore communications and media studies major Tiffany Hung finds increasingly necessary. But first she’d like some clarity.
“I was a little confused because I wasn’t really sure what Blue Demon Week meant,” Hung said. “I didn’t know that homecoming was associated with this week.”
The signs were enough for sophomore Emily Valdez who didn’t attend homecoming dance last year because she didn’t hear about it. While she probably won’t go again this year and thinks the name change is “no big deal,” she accredits her awareness this year to the banners.
Aside from the vagueness, Hung agrees with the rebranding mission.
“It’s a good way to bring more community, family-sense feel to DePaul because we are a commuter school and we do have very low school spirit,” she said. “I think it’s a good effort.”
If Blue Demon Week sounds like it’s just a DAB-SGA partnership, it’s not. The rebranding includes a whopping 23 university offices. From the more obvious Alumni Relations and Athletics to the newer Office of Health Promotion and Wellness.
The Blue Demon Ball, formerly known as the Homecoming Dance, will be held Friday Feb. 21 at the Bridgeport Art Center- Skyline Loft.