Homecoming finds new funding, will be held alongside Pauley Pavilion re-opening
Last year’s Homecoming festivities featured carnival games, student club performances and a flash mob practice for the Homecoming game.
Homecoming 2012
Friday, Nov. 2
Pauley Pavilion
By Kristen Taketa
Oct. 22, 2012 1:25 a.m.
The annual UCLA Homecoming festival will return to campus next month, this time without using undergraduate student government funds after negative student feedback following the event last year, officials said.
The festival will have about 25 student-group-run booths with games, food and giveaways. It will be held on Nov. 2 in conjunction with UCLA Recreation’s Pauley Opening Madness, an event that will celebrate the reopening of Pauley Pavilion.
UCLA Recreation will primarily finance the event, currently estimated to cost about $12,500, said Rich Mylin, associate director of facility and event operations at UCLA Recreation.
The estimate is lower than last year’s cost because the Homecoming Committee has connections with areas of the campus such as UCLA Recreation and is reusing materials from last year’s event, said Kaitlyn Williams, co-executive director of the Homecoming Committee and a third-year political science student.
Last year’s Undergraduate Students Association Council president Emily Resnick brought back Homecoming for the first time in seven years as one of her campaign platforms.
The committee tapped into about $19,600 in USAC surplus funds last year, leftover money that carries over year to year. Unused surplus funds are returned to programming funds, which student groups can apply for to fund their own activities.
Students had expressed concerns about the amount of student funding that went toward Homecoming.
The Homecoming Committee, comprised of more than 100 students, opted to separate from USAC this year to avoid using student group funding, Williams said. While USAC put on Homecoming last year, the committee now operates as its own official student group.
“Our biggest thing that we took from (student feedback) was to move away from using student funds to fund the event,” Williams said. “We want to make sure (Homecoming) is a unifying event rather than a divisive one.”
UCLA Recreation will charge $5 for student tickets to Pauley Opening Madness to help cover Homecoming’s costs, Kenn Heller, associate director of innovation intitiatives for UCLA Recreation said. Tickets for the event are on sale at the Central Ticket Office.
UCLA Recreation is currently looking for corporate sponsorships to partially fund the Homecoming events, though none have been finalized yet, said Heller.
The committee and UCLA Recreation decided to combine this year’s Homecoming festivities with Pauley Opening Madness to make the stadium’s reopening a student-focused function, Heller said.
“At the core, (Pauley Pavilion) has always been a student venue,” Heller said. “So what we want to do is open it really big with students.”
In addition to the Homecoming festival, the planning committee will host a variety of events in preparation for the football game against the University of Arizona on Nov. 3.
These events include a pregame rally on the Hill before students leave for the Rose Bowl, and a tailgate party at the game, among other activities throughout the week.
A large number of students, however, said they were unaware of the quickly-approaching Homecoming festivities.
“I haven’t heard much about it,” said Hannah Guo, a fourth-year communication studies student. “I feel like (Homecoming) is a bigger deal in high school. I might go if I were passing by.”
Other students said they would attend just to see what the newly-finished facility looks like.
Still, some students like Matt Wasilewski, a first-year human biology and society student, said they are looking forward to the Homecoming experience.
Wasilewski said he feels the event will help foster school unity and pride particularly as the school year progresses, when students become occupied with their own work.
The Homecoming Committee does not plan to always rely on UCLA Recreation for funding, and will continue to vie for sponsorships to fund future events, Williams said.
Williams said she hopes that in the future, homecoming will grow to be a landmark function at UCLA that students will remember.
“We want Homecoming to be an established event on campus,” Williams said. “We hope to have it be one of those events that people look forward to every year.”
Email Taketa at [email protected].
