Event competition winner fails to get approval

John Walker ‘17 planned to gather students on Friday to build and destroy a wooden hawk to celebrate the 151st Lafayette-Lehigh game the following day. Lafayette administration, however, revoked its approval, citing dangers to a nearby airport.

The rivalry-themed event to destroy Lehigh’s mascot won aLafayette College Student Governmentcompetition in which 14 groups applied with plans for a campus-wide event to win $2,500 in funding.

After student government’s representation committee narrowed the list down to five events, Lafayette students voted on the winnerthrough a Qualtrics survey. There were glitches in the survey, so some people could not submit their votes.

Walker’s event won, but it still had to be approved by those involved.

Walker said the problem with the idea for “Hawk Smash” was that it wasn’t fully planned.

“I didn’t have a set structure,” Walker said.“I had an idea and wanted to see how far I could take it.”

“Originally it was called Hawk Smash, and since they already do Car Smack, I wasn’t going to do the same thing,” Walker added, referring to the event in which Lafayette students take a sledgehammer to a car representing the Lehigh Hawks. “That’s why I got caught up in the idea of burning it because it would have been different from that.”

No money was spent, Walker said, since he did not get the approval for the administration. Student government planned togive him $2,500 to build and burn the wooden hawk.

President of Lafayette College Student Government Aaron Little ‘16 said talks are planned for the groups that had events in the bottom three of the competition to collaborate and organize an event with the money. It might have been given to Fall Ball, the runner up, Little said, but that event has already happened.

To get his event approved, Walkerpresented his idea to many departments in the administration.

“I had met with a few administrators, an art professor, even President Byerly knew about the idea, but the last administrator that I met with was when I found out no,” Walker said.

Walker would not disclose the name of the administrator, who said Walker could not burn the hawk.So, he cancelled the event altogether.

Walker said he was frustrated that it took him three and a half weeks of planning and talks to find out that the event was a no-go.