Purdue Northwest roars into final weeks of homecoming
Purdue University Northwest’s winter homecoming celebration is going beyond the basketball games, with a variety of activities — from food drives to indoor carnivals — leading up to the big day on Thursday.
The theme for this year’s events is the ROARing 20s. It kicked off with an Art of the Pride canvas art contest and the winning masterpiece will be unveiled at the “Mane” Event on Thursday.
The women’s team tips off against Ferris State University at 5 p.m., followed by the men at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the Fitness & Recreation Center, 2320 173rd St., Hammond. Doors open at 4 p.m. The Homecoming Committee will host Student Fan Experience @ The “Mane” Event, which will invite students to cheer on the men’s and women’s basketball teams while enjoying free food, mocktails, T-shirts, giveaways and more.
During the first week of February, PNW focused efforts on alleviating food insecurity on campus by filling the shelves of the PNW Food Pantry. As part of Philanthropy Week, the campus community rallied together with a friendly competition to win the coveted “Chancellor’s Cup” and showed an outpouring of support as a total of 3,762 food items was collected to benefit the recipients at both the Hammond and Westville campuses.
The Byway Brewing Co. Alumni VIP Experience featured the brewery’s Golden Mane Ale — created exclusively for PNW — as well as food, giveaways and more.
The return of “Decorate the House” was very popular among PNW students. For the second consecutive year, PNW students, staff and faculty were encouraged to help paint windows and doors with Purdue Northwest gold and black to promote upcoming events throughout the month of homecoming.
About 1,000 students across the two PNW campuses took part in indoor carnivals, which included games such as jumbo Jenga, a basketball pop-ashot, an inflatable obstacle course, an inflatable horse race, and a mechanical bull. The record time was 22 seconds.
There is still one more event for PNW students to enjoy before the big basketball games next week. Faculty and staff from the Honors College, the Office of Global Engagement, and the Office of Student Life have put their heads together to come up with an evening of challenging questions for Homecoming Trivia Night. Students are encouraged to bring their friends and gather together with their thinking caps on for a night of putting their trivia knowledge to the test. This event will be held at 5 p.m. Tuesday in Alumni Hall, in the Student Union & Library on the Hammond campus.