Fall is in full swing at Butler, and the University Program Council (UPC) is celebrating the season. Saturday, Oct. 11 — as part of Butler’s free Family Weekend events — UPC hosted a fall festival on the South Mall from 3 to 6 p.m., complete with several vendors both within and outside the Butler community.
Zaiah Crites, a sophomore psychology and Spanish double major, is the UPC president. She mentioned that one of the key elements of the festival this year was cultivating community on Butler’s campus. UPC also handed out 50 free tickets to Broad Ripple’s Oktoberfest as part of the initiative.
“Our mission at Butler is trying to foster an inclusive community, [and] get people together,” Crites said. “I feel like this [event] really contributed to that [goal] because there were a lot of people, a lot of families [in attendance] and they enjoyed their time.
This year, the fall festival was unique in offering a significant portion of the booths to students in the real business experience (RBE) program — a course required of all students in the Lacy School of Business — giving them a chance to market their products. Crites explained that UPC wanted to provide opportunities to support both Butler students and local businesses.
One booth at the festival featured the RBE group Collegiate Stitched, marketing their Butler-branded crewnecks. Group members Addelynn Hopkins, a sophomore entrepreneurship & innovation major, and sophomore marketing major Kanoa Gahl attributed their success at the event to seeing Butler “come alive” during Family Weekend.
“I feel like we’ve done really well today, especially because people can actually see the product, especially because it’s a clothing item,” Hopkins said. “Butler is so small, so sometimes it’s hard to have that community feeling, and I feel like seeing everybody being out and about [is] really nice.”
Maddie O’Brien, a sophomore neuroscience, sociology and psychology triple major, agreed that Family Weekend offered the perfect opportunity to host the festival.
“I feel like a lot of the families aren’t from Indianapolis,” O’Brien said. “[They’re able to] see a lot of these Indy local businesses, and they get to experience [something unique].