At Colorado State University-Pueblo, Pi Day is a tradition filled with puns, math and of course, pie. This was the ninth year that the Student Organizations Leadership Program held its annual Pi Day event, which took place outside by the university fountain.
Student clubs, organizations and different departments signed up to set up booths around the fountain in the center of campus. Each of them had different pies for students to enjoy while hearing about organizations and departments on campus.
Juliette Mogenson, the incoming graduate assistant for the Student Organizations Leadership Program, was in charge of overseeing Pi Day and put together the entire event with the help of the Student Organizations team.
“We like to put on Pi Day as close to March 14 as possible,” Mogenson said. “Really it is just a fun time for student organizations to come promote their club. We ask all the student organizations to bring a pie filling. The office of Student Engagement and Leadership gives out pie crusts, so everyone can go around to each organizations booth and fill their crust with different fillings.”
Since the event is held outside, the weather is a good indicator of how many people will show up to Pi day. In past years, a few hundred people have shown up. This year the wind was stirring things up a bit, but the warm sun ensured a fairly large crowd.
“Every year Pi Day is a little bit different,” Mogenson said. “We do it at different locations, but we typically like to hold it at the fountain if the weather is nice. Last year it was raining, so this is definitely a step up.”
Student Organizations encourages as many clubs or departments, or even just students who want to promote something, to sign up. The promotions can consist of whatever they want including things such as games, contests and especially food, a popular commodity among college students.
“If they have a cool thing they want to promote they can totally just come sign up. We don’t like to restrict it to any sort of sub group,” Mogenson explained.
The Residence Hall Association was promoting their organization with a game that encourage students to guess how many Starbursts were in a jar.
They also handed out flyers and, of course, pie. Other groups such as the French club, marketing club, and the diversity research also promoted themselves at the event.
“We are trying to have as many traditions here at CSU-P as possible,” Mogenson said of the goals of Pi day. “We are a smaller campus but if we can bring the same type of event back every year and create more of a community and traditions here, then we definitely want to get as many people involved as possible.”
