By Samuel Medina III/ south news editor
Every Halloween, the South Campus writing center puts a human-sized zombie named Jennifer up on display that the students adore.
This year, Jennifer inspired the writing center, students, faculty and staff to make its first haunted house, which will open Oct. 29.
Learning lab manager Gabrielle Raymond decorated the center last year for Halloween with the help of others and received a good enough response from students to take it to the next level.
“A lot of students said they wished the campus did more stuff for Halloween,” Raymond said. “So we said next year we should just have a full-on haunted house. Now, it’s become a thing.”
The entire writing center will be used to construct the haunted house made possible by the volunteers and donations they receive. And they’re trying to recruit more performers.
“We have probably 10-15 people volunteering right now,” she said. “I would love to have as many people as possible. The more we have, the better.”
Donations of materials are also requested.
“We haven’t spent any of this on our budget at all,” Raymond said. “So we decided that we don’t charge for anything and that it’s open to the public and families as well.”
A part of the haunted house will be family-friendly, specifically geared toward younger children who can exit right after to avoid going through the entire attraction if they wish.
“Right now, every zone is just about ready, so we’re pretty organized,” Raymond said. “I’m hoping it’s going to be really successful.”
The haunted house will be open 7-9 p.m. Oct. 29.
“There’s classes in the writing center until 7:20, and one of the teachers said to go ahead and be as loud as possible,” Raymond said. “It’s going to be a whole lot of fun. We’re really looking forward to it.”
Raymond said she hopes the haunted house becomes an annual event because she thinks the students will have a lot of fun.
“Right before our haunted house is the Horror Film Fest in the Technology Building,” she said. “Anyone from over there gets an escort over to the writing center if they want to go to the haunted house. So we’re hoping both of the events will kind of feed off of each other. If I were at the film fest, I’d come this way.”
Oct. 26-28 will be devoted to preparing the writing center for the haunted house. The writing center will be closed Oct. 29.
