Wednesday afternoons in the Idaho Commons just became more entertaining.
Daytime Distractions, a program run by the Department of Student Involvement, encourages students to participate in scheduled activities from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every Wednesday until Dec. 10.
Katie Dahlinger, a supervisor for student coordinators, said this year’s Daytime Distractions events started last week, with large floor pianos inspired by the movie “Big.”
“So, imagine you’re a five year old, and I said ‘you get to play on a super-gigantic floor piano’ that’s what it would be,” Dahlinger said. “But for adult-sized people, it’s not super gigantic; it’s just sort of big.”
Dahlinger said Ana Campos, the new student coordinator in charge of Daytime Distractions, has plans for several of the upcoming events including a balloon dartboard with paint, various musicians, a photo booth and the WSU Raptor Club.
“This is just idea-stage. Some of them are confirmed, some of them aren’t, but she’s working on it,” Dahlinger said.
Campos said she’d like to invite performers – some from student groups and some that are professional musicians – for events, because there’s less pressure for students to participate.
“I feel like people, once they see something they like, they actually end up watching it and it captures their attention,” she said. “As opposed to just saying ‘here, this is if you guys want to do it and stuff,’ just so there’s more interaction.”
Campos said she noticed people at the last event took some time to get comfortable with participating, but became more interested as others tried the floor pianos.
Campos said the next event will be a live, hour-long KUOI broadcast from the Commons. She said she thought this was a good opportunity for students to become more informed about what KUOI does.
One of the next projected events is a corndog-eating contest. Campos said the Vandal Express Store is sponsoring the event to help inform students that it will soon sell corndogs on campus.
“I’m very interested to see how that’s going to go, and how many people are going to try it out and stuff, ‘cause everyone likes corndogs,” she said.
Campos said one of her favorite ideas for later in the semester is to set up a stress-relief table.
“Whether it’s getting stress balls, or warm tea, or hot chocolate or gum, just kind of the things that can give people a little, one more thing that they don’t have to worry about,” Campos said.
Dahlinger said Daytime Distractions events are intended to make the week more fun, particularly for off-campus students who spend lunch time in the Commons. She said there is a lot of brainstorming involved in picking activities, but would like more of them to come from student suggestions.
“People can email (Campos) with any sort of recommendations they have for Daytimes,” Dahlinger said. “However, we hope to make that more available. We could do better about sharing how to get a hold of us and give suggestions, but mostly it’s just through conversation.”
Campos said she’s excited about restarting the program, and hopes students will find activities they enjoy, and get involved both in Daytime Distractions and other university-affiliated activities.
“There are so many different resources to utilize on campus, and you kind of just have to be able to open up a little bit,” she said. “Because we have, like, 200-plus clubs on campus, and I feel like if everyone joined at least one, that they’d have probably a more rich experience.”
Daphne Jackson can be reached at [email protected]