Homecoming begins Sun., Oct. 29 and ends Sat., Nov. 4, and the Homecoming Committee said they maintain this will be the best one to date.
“I think every year we start to make Homecoming better than it was in the past,” Dave White, a graduate student in industrial engineering and a member of the Homecoming Committee, said. “This year has more events and new experiences for the student body to get involved with.”
Homecoming week bridges the gap between current students and alumni, providing an environment with events where they can interact together.
“Celebrating Homecoming is really about Wolfpack pride on display,” Mark Clapp, a senior in textile engineering and publicity chair of the Homecoming Committee, said. “It’s just a great opportunity to support the University and show how much we care about it. It’s a great way for alumni to come back and for students to get involved and an event everyone who goes to N.C. State can enjoy together.”
Homecoming Committee Chair Connie Justice said Homecoming week gives alumni the opportunity to reconnect with their University and see how it has changed since they were here.
“It gives current students a celebration and [is] an event that helps them see that N.C. State will be a place that they want to come back to years down the way,” she said. “It gives alumni a celebration and an event so they can see how far our University has come in the years since they have graduated.”
Homecoming week will kickoff on Sun., Oct. 29 on Harris Field, where students can mingle and enjoy free food and entertainment.
Other events throughout the week will include “Wear Red, Get Fed,” spirit competitions, a parade, “Pack Howl,” canned food drives, blood drives and service events.
This year, the parade will occur on Fri., Nov. 3 on Hillsborough Street for only the second time in 20 years. In previous years, the parade was held on Cates Avenue — until it got too big.
“Homecoming has been a tradition that has just started to come back where it gets bigger every year,” White said. “Previously the parade was down Cates Avenue because it was big enough at that time, but now that we’ve made it such a big thing, and pretty much the entire N.C. State area, including businesses, supports our Homecoming they want to have Hillsborough Street closed off for [the parade].”
The Homecoming Committee began planning this year’s Homecoming week during the spring. The Committee has seven subcommittees, each of which pertains to and plans one of the events that occur during Homecoming Week.
Subcommittees consist of spirit, kickoff, “Wear Red, Get Fed,” “Pack Howl,” service, publicity and parade. Each subcommittee has a chair who leads the planning of its specific event and corresponds with different vendors in the area.
“A lot of work goes into [Homecoming],” Justice said. “We work together to plan and implement the events of the week and develop new ideas that we think students would enjoy.”
According to Justice, the Homecoming Committee has enough money to make this year a successful Homecoming.
“Homecoming is sponsored by the Alumni Association, so they donate money, as well as student organizations and different University-affiliated organizations and sponsors,” she said. “It’s a University-wide event so departments on campus are always willing to help make Homecoming a success.”
This year, different student organizations implemented new events to the festivities. According to Justice, the additions, which are sponsored by other sources, will not affect the Homecoming budget.
To prepare for the week-long events, the committee is working on getting volunteers since most of the planning and scheduling is finalized, according to Justice.
“It’s going to be even bigger and better than it was last year,” Clapp said. “We’ve added so many more events this year and we’ve got a lot of momentum going.”