Students Rave about Soule Tea

After a tumultuous day of watching Exeter/Andover games and catching up with alumni, students flocked past ducts and danger signs onto the dancefloor of the second annual Soule Tea.“There was a really good feeling in the room. People were excited and having a good time. Last year’s group really set a good reputation, and they built on it this year,” Assistant Director of Student Activities Kelly McGahie said. “I think it was a very successful E/A dance, and the lion’s share of the credit goes to the students who planned the event.”Students in Soule Hall worked hard over the past several weeks to host the industrial-themed dance in Grainger Auditorium, which featured hazers, a lights show and upper Max Larnerd as D.J.Lower Mahesh Kumar, a resident of Soule Hall, commented on the process. “It’s a really important event for us. It’s our only real opportunity to show the school how ‘Soule-diers’ party,” he said. “We had groups setting up the dance as well as cleaning Grainger after it. It was much better this year!”Larnerd, who had to prepare a playlist of 40 songs for the event, believes that Student Activities gave Soule more flexibility in planning the event than last year and thinks it was a successful dance. “On the decision-making part, the Student Activities office gave us a lot of freedom to mold the dance to how we wanted it to be,” Larnerd said. “I had a great time D.J.’ing for everyone. It was a fun crowd.”

This dance is widely recognized for its prolific advertising campaign, which features hundreds of small fliers bearing the event’s distinctive circular logo plastered throughout campus.

The utilization of almost every available surface has created problems in the past, but McGahie said these issues were mitigated this year. “The poster campaign was a problem more last year,” McGahie said. “They were ‘prolific’ this year, but certainly everyone knew what was happening. They got the word out.”Since Soule Tea has traditionally been hosted on E/A weekend, the deans require students to present their Lion Cards for entry, a policy which began after alumni caused problems at former events on this weekend.Although, according to McGahie, this policy was widely publicized, several students encountered problems gaining entry.“It was not our intention to turn anybody away, but there were six different opportunities for them to find out they needed to bring their Lion Card to the event,” McGahie said, describing the PSA posters and emails.“I thought the whole event was very well put-together and I'm sure everyone is grateful for the effort that went into it,” lower Hailey Hudson said. “I didn’t go last year so I didn't have much to compare it to, but I had a lot of fun and I definitely want to go again next year.”