By now, students have noticed the handful of birthday presents scattered across campus. These presents are 4-foot tall plywood boxes painted in silver, black and gold, each with shimmering bows and small signs wishing the university a happy 125th.
The birthday boxes created buzz on campus just as Hayley Lydig, the mastermind and the artist behind the concept, hoped they would.
“I didn’t want to do a traditional social media based campaign for students,” Lydig said. “I wanted something they couldn’t ignore. You can’t scroll through a physical object, essentially. I wanted students to know about and get excited about the 125th in a way they weren’t expecting.”
Lydig, an operations management and human resources major set to graduate in May, has been organizing the festivities for months. Her present and future is entwined in planning — she hopes to be hired as an events coordinator upon graduation.
Lydig has studied abroad in Ireland, served as both the Communications Board Director and the Director of Finance in ASUI, a Rho Chi for Panhellenic and ambassador for the College of Business and Economics. She is currently an intern for the president’s office, where she picked up the job spearheading the coordination of the anniversary festivities.
Since then, Lydig has been busy handing out prizes around campus, acting as the middleman between different offices on campus and painting boxes.
“Making sure security doesn’t come and take them away,” she said.
Though the birthday presents serve as a tangible reminder of the festivities on campus, Lydig has supplemented their presence with social media.
“It’s called Vandal Pride 1-2-5,” she said. “It’s a huge Vine and Instagram campaign. We’ll see how it goes. To extend it, we’re trying to get students to show us their Vandal pride with videos and pics and tweets, and why students and alumni love Idaho, and what it means to be a Vandal.”
Lydig said being a Vandal is one of the many reasons the project is so important to her.
“I love the sense of community I get being a Vandal,” she said. “Especially not being from Idaho state. When I wear my Idaho clothes, you always get people singing the fight song at you, asking about your life, telling you about how their uncle’s niece’s husband is a Vandal and I never got that with other colleges I’d wear.”
Lydig said coordinating the festivities has also been a great experience professionally. Lydig has coordinated Greek events, fundraisers and non-profits, but said taking on a project that extends over the course of a year instead of a single, isolated day is a whole other realm.
More than anything else, that’s what Lydig hopes students will remember this year.
“It’s a year-long celebration,” Lydig said. “It’s not over just because Thursday comes and goes. I think it should matter. (Students) should be proud to be at such a great place. I think a majority of students really enjoy their time here, and are really proud of themselves and the education they receive here.”
Hannah Shirley
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