Tailgate for the Arts event Thursday was a potluck to give students, faculty and staff a chance to get together before the play Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
The event had a low attendance with students, but faculty and staff showed up.
Dean of Students, Kellie Gerbers explains the event and the purpose she had in mind for the gathering.
“Folks are encouraged to bring a potluck dish to share, but it’s not required,” Gerbers said. “It’s really an opportunity for us all to be in community before supporting the cast and crew of Accidental Death of an Anarchist this evening.”
The event was open to students, faculty and staff, however no students showed.
Kellie said her initiative for starting this event is to be able to create an opportunity for people to join a community.
“One of my initiatives for starting this is if someone on campus wants to go to a play and they’re worried that they don’t have a friend to go with,” Gerbers said. “I’m hoping this can be a space that if someone wants to go to the play but they don’t have a community yet, [to] come be part of our community.”
Attendees share why they decided to participate at the event.
“For this particular event it was more or less the opportunity to connect with other folks, I think students, staff, faculty. You never know [who is] going to show up to these types of food gatherings,” said Oliver Anderson, assistant dean of students.
With Westminster’s small size, many people say they strive for community building.
“I am a big supporter of Westminster’s theatre program, I go to all of their shows. I was planning on going to this one anyway, [it’s a] fun faculty staff get-together for a tailgate, it’s wonderful,” said Jeff Driggs, Westminster staff who works in Institutional Advancement.
Gerbers said that this is an event that she hopes to see in the future.
“Hoping to do this again in the future, we’ll try to mark a couple things in the spring,” Gerbers said. “I hope that we can continue to do this and as more people find out about them.”
Anderson said if there was another event like this he would attend.
“I think the tailgates have really grown big for the athletic events, I could see this growing bigger,” Anderson said. “I’d definitely come back.”
In the future, Anderson hopes students will show up to an event like this.
“I’d be interested to see, at least from that population, what prevented them from coming,” Anderson said. “So we can learn from that and adapt for the next one.”
