Off-campus houses were included in this year's Homecoming festivities because of a new event created as part of an outreach to heighten school spirit.
As part of an outreach to heighten school spirit, the Homecoming Steering Committee has created the Off-Campus Housing Decorating Contest.
Student houses located from New York Street to Wheeling Avenue had the chance to decorate their houses in the Homecoming theme "Play Your Cards Right" for the contest.
Judging took place Sunday with the house located on the corner of Neely Avenue and Locust Street taking the grand prize - a cornhole set and a fully stocked cooler for tailgating.
"It's really easy to do; I thought it was fun," said Michele Morris, a senior nursing major and resident of the winning house.
The residents took decoration ideas from the Homecoming theme, using playing cards as wind catchers, football stickers adorning their patio and homemade signs showing their Cardinal pride.
"We kind of forgot about it until Sunday morning," Morris said. "We were actually still working on taping things up when they came to judge at 4 [p.m.]."
Morris said she and her roommates had a fun time making the decorations themselves, which made the whole experience very cheap.
"We just went to the dollar store and spent maybe $8 or $10," Morris said.
Brittney Williams, general chairwoman of the committee, said the event happened without much time for advertising.
"We only had two teams participate by the end of the day," Williams said. "We needed to get the word out sooner and extend our range."
Williams said there would have been several more houses that would have participated if the range for houses had been extended, which is something they will keep in mind for the future.
"It didn't seem like they had the turnout they wanted," Morris said. "We were really the only ones who did it that I saw."
Morris said she and her housemates looked for the other houses that participated, and found only two or three other houses that decorated at all, though she said she didn't ask if they were part of the competition.
"These houses had put things in their windows, but none had done anything like what we did," Morris said.
As a senior, Morris said she was glad she got the chance to participate.
"We had so much fun doing it," Morris said. "I would suggest people do it next year to get school spirit up."
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