HALLoween continues 50-year tradition

By Kathryn Walters Staff Writer walters14@up.edu

No matter how old we get, many of us have our own Halloween traditions. Some like to carve pumpkins, bake delicious goodies and watch scary movies. As college students, we may not be able to go trick-or-treating like we did as kids, but we can still partake in all the fun traditions and festivities Halloween has to offer.

On Oct. 31 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., the Office of Residence Life and the Residence Hall Association will sponsor HALLoween, which will host various activities and traditions, such as the Shipstad Hall Haunted House, Mehling Hall Thriller Night and trick-or-treating, as well as other dorm-sponsored events. UP students and local Portland families are invited to participate in these festivities.

"This is about UP's opportunity to give back to the North Portland area," Jon Merchant, assistant director of Residence Life, said. "It's a safe, family-friendly event."

According to Merchant, UP's most prominent tradition of inviting local children to trick-or-treat in the residence halls first started during the 1960s when Villa Maria Hall was an all-female dorm. The Villa Maria women began to invite local children to trick-or-treat in the dorm and soon the other residence halls followed suit.

"We wanted to spread the wealth and have other halls be involved," Merchant said.

Some UP professors take their children trick-or-treating in the residence halls. Psychology professor Deana Julka enjoys taking her children to UP for HALLoween.

"It's fun for me because I get to see my students dressed up," she said. "My kids love it. It's neat for students to keep the holidays alive."

Today, the HALLoween festivities have expanded into an inter-dorm lobby-decorating contest, small activities such as face painting and showing Halloween-related movies and dorm-sponsored traditions like the Shipstad Hall Haunted House and the Mehling Hall Thriller Night.

According to Amanda Murphy, Shipstad Hall assistant director, the Haunted House will be open from 6 to 8 p.m. There is a modified version for children between 6 and 7 p.m., followed by the scarier one for students between 7 and 8 p.m. She said the Haunted House is normally visited by 100 to 200 people each year.

"The parents love it, but the kids don't like it so much," Murphy said. "The parents are entertained by what the students put on for the kids."

This year, there will be a slight change to the layout of the Haunted House. Instead of a creepy operating room, there will now be a spooky psychiatric ward.

"We have done the same thing for a few years and we wanted to change it," freshman Rebecca Mion, who is on the RHA HALLoween committee, said.

Mehling Hall has its own Halloween tradition, Thriller Night, where UP students are invited to learn and perform the iconic dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." The performance is recorded and put on YouTube for all to enjoy. This will be Thriller Night's third year as a part of Mehling Hall's Halloween festivities and will take place on Oct. 30.

"We like to make it as fun as we can," Holly Allar, hall director of Mehling Hall, said. "I like being able to go back and see the videos."

In addition to Thriller Night, Mehling Hall will provide materials for trick-or-treaters to make Tootsie Pop ghosts. Mehling Hall's lobby decoration theme will be an old haunted Hollywood hotel, with students acting as bellhops.

Allar said Mehling Hall's elevators have been a part of the Halloween traditions in their own way.

"Parents ask if we make the elevators scary on purpose," she said.

Although Fields and Schoenfeldt Halls are still relatively new, they are establishing their own traditions. According to freshman Thomas Hoban, a member of the HALLoween committee, the two dorms want to start a graveyard scene as their lobby-decorating tradition.

"We like the graveyard scene because it was spooky but not too freaky where it would cause kids to cry," he said.

In all the dorms, students are invited to keep their doors open for trick-or-treaters, but some students go above and beyond. Schoenfeldt Hall director Alex Hermanny said last year a Schoenfeldt resident set up a scary maze in his room for the trick-or-treaters.

"The students enjoy interacting with the kids in the neighborhood," Hermanny said.

Fields and Schoenfeldt Halls will also offer face painting and mystery boxes, in which food products such as spaghetti and Jell-O will be placed in closed boxes for kids to touch without seeing what is inside.

Villa Maria Hall will host a gourd-painting event for the trick-or-treaters, and their lobby will be a "creepy doll" theme, while Corrado Hall will have cupcake decorating.

Christie Hall will also be joining in the HALLoween fun by showing Tim Burton's movie "Corpse Bride" for the trick-or-treaters, in addition to decorating the lobby and having scary events in the basement.

"We are planning to have the most awesome decorations and the most fun of any dorm," sophomore Philippe Boutros said.

Kenna Hall will be hosting pumpkin painting and cookie decorating and will participate in the lobby-decorating contest.

"We're trying to make the lobby as spooky as possible," Megan Bebb, Kenna Hall director, said.