USF Week will be returning in full force as a superhero-themed week of in-person activities and events.
Courtesy of @usfhab on Instagram
By Molly Ryan
Another COVID-19-compromised tradition will make its fully fledged return to the University of South Florida.
The Harborside Activities Board (HAB) will host this year’s superhero-themed USF Week, incorporating entirely in-person events for the first time since 2019.
According to Joshua Rampertab, junior criminology major, lieutenant governor-elect and president of HAB, “there’s a lot more room to do bigger things this semester than the last.”
“We really planned for a larger volume of people coming around for this USF Week because we do have all in-person events,” said Allison Richards, HAB’s director of traditions and junior biology major. “Each one of our events during the week is kind of like a different time for a different group of students just to make sure everyone’s involved.”
The week will kick off with a farewell lecture and ice cream social with outgoing St. Petersburg Regional Chancellor Martin Tadlock and will continue with giveaways and a combination of campus traditions like Screen on the Green and novel events like the Laser Light Fight.
“[When planning], there’s a lot more collaboration that goes into it with the different organizations on campus because a lot of students here haven’t experienced what a USF Week would be like on campus. For a lot of us, it was cut off,” Richards said. “[This year’s USF Week is] trying to integrate students back into the campus’s student life that a lot of students haven’t gotten before.”
According to Richards, USF Week is celebrated to both recognize mascot Rocky the Bull’s birthday and “give individuality to the university.”
The tradition first came about in 2010 when former Tampa mayor Pam Iorio established “USF Day” on April 9. Since then, it has morphed into individual week-long celebrations across all three campuses.
Previously regarded as “USFSP Week” on the St. Petersburg campus, all three campuses will celebrate the now-comprehensive USF Week for its second year since consolidation’s official start in the summer of 2020.
However, Richards assured that St. Petersburg’s USF Week will be unique from the Tampa and Sarasota-Manatee campuses.
“We’re consolidated, but everything isn’t the same,” Richards said. “We still hold a little bit of autonomy, we picked the theme that we’re going with here and we picked the stuff that we’re giving out to make it a little different for students.”
Students are encouraged to take part in festivities across all three campuses — like Sarasota-Manatee’s Faculty/Staff vs. Students Basketball Game on Wednesday and Tampa’s Bullstock, featuring performances from Olivia O’Brien and Neon Trees on Friday.
All campuses will end USF Week by coming together at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa for USF football’s spring game on Saturday.
Stayed tuned for updates on St. Petersburg’s USF Week via @usfhab on Instagram. Visit usf.edu/student-affairs/usfweek/ to see each campus’s USF Week events schedule and additional information.
