Students dancing at USF St. Petersburg’s Homecoming Royalty Ball in fall 2023.
Photo courtesy of @usfstpetersburg on Instagram
By Mahika Kukday
Homecoming week returns to USF St. Petersburg, with events scheduled from Monday, Nov. 4 to Friday, Nov. 9.
As the post-hurricane fog of evacuation stress and accumulating assignment deadlines slowly begins to lift at the waterfront campus, students may find comfort in the annual weeklong tradition.
“We love putting these events on, especially after nearly a month of being off and not having any events at all,” said Emma Bridegam, interdisciplinary social sciences senior and executive director of USF St. Petersburg’s Harborside Activities Board (HAB). “We are very excited to come back.”
Here’s what the St. Petersburg campus’ Homecoming programming will look like:
- Breakfast Tabling: Monday, Nov. 4 from 8 to 10 a.m. at Harborwalk. Grab-and-go breakfast items and Homecoming merchandise.
- Royalty Ball: Monday, Nov. 4 from 7 to 10 p.m. in the USC Ballrooms. DJ and dancing, light refreshments, performance by the South Florida All Stars and crowning of homecoming royalty.
- USC Takeover: Tuesday, Nov. 5 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the USC. Record painting with light refreshments (The Reef) and roller-skating rink (Ballrooms).
- Fall Festival in collaboration with the Wellness Center: Wednesday, Nov. 6 from 4to 7 p.m. at the USC Lawn. Hayrides, DIY mini fall wreaths and DIY zen gardens in honor of National Stress Awareness Day.
- Bouquet Bar: Thursday, Nov. 7 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the USC Lawn. DIY flower bouquets, refreshments and Homecoming merchandise.
Bridegam said the Cardboard Boat Race will be tentatively rescheduled for USF Week in April 2025. The beloved annual tradition at the St. Petersburg campus features student organizations building a themed boat entirely out of cardboard, and racing them in the harbor.
“I’m not going to sit here and expect them [students] to have their priority, after coming back from two major hurricanes, to be building a boat out of duct tape and cardboard,” Bridegam said.
St. Petersburg students had just seven days on campus, between evacuations for hurricanes
Helene and Milton, which meant that the competing boats were likely unfinished.
A couple other factors contributed to the difficult decision to cancel the Cardboard Boat Race. Many participants and club leaders are residents of Pelican Apartments, who will only be able to return to campus on Oct. 29 after a three-week absence.
“Our launch place has a giant hole in it,” Bridegam said, adding that the water was also littered by the consecutive storms, and that the backup location, the pool, was shut for repairs.
Photo courtesy of Emma Bridegam
Photo courtesy of Emma Bridegam
“There just wouldn’t have been a race worth having,” she declared.
However, Bridegam expressed gratitude for her team at HAB, who she said made it easy to be flexible with rescheduling. Initially, they decided to cancel Homecoming events at the St. Petersburg campus because of uncertainty with campus reopening after Hurricane Milton.
Then, when they heard from USF Tampa about the new dates, HAB started to adapt and find solutions.
Homecoming week is a OneUSF tradition, which means all three campuses celebrate it at the same time. The exact dates are decided by a committee led by Bill McCausland, vice president and executive director of the university’s alumni association.
The information is communicated to USF Tampa’s Campus Activities Board (CAB), They then pass it on to the St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campus’ corresponding organizations, who plan campus-specific events.
“Things like Tampa’s homecoming ball, the parade, those kinds of things we have to work our events around,” Bridegam said.
Here are the revised dates for OneUSF Homecoming events:
- Running of the Bulls Parade: Friday, Nov. 8 starting at 6:30 p.m. at USF Holly, Genshaft and Alumni Drives.
- Homecoming Football Game (USF v. Navy): Saturday, Nov. 9 at Raymond James Stadium
The university announced Homecoming’s revised schedule in an official email on Oct. 14, intended to “allow USF to celebrate these important events at a more appropriate time, and give our students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends an opportunity to focus on their more immediate needs following the hurricanes.”
