Charlotte Shields-Rossi | staff writer

Last Friday Duquesne was transformed into a winter wonderland for its annual Night of Lights. A horse-drawn carriage trotted up and down A-Walk, carolers sang on the perron and President Ken Gormley did the honor of lighting up the campus, kick starting the Christmas season.

During the Christmas spectacular, the Office of Orientation hosted Santa’s Workshop, giving student organizations the chance to host a holiday craft or treat. Inside the Africa Room students, faculty and family alike gathered to participate in the activities, while learning more about what the various on-campus clubs do.

The Residence Hall Association, the governing body for students in Duquesne’s living learning centers, was one of the organizations present at the event. Their table was filled with markers, sequins, glitter and buttons, providing guests with a chance to decorate Christmas stockings made of red felt.

Elsie Angeles, communications manager for the Residence Hall Association, spent the evening running the craft table.

Angeles said the organization chose this particular craft because it was a cheaper option that everyone could enjoy.

“With everything going on, I hope that everybody can get into the holiday spirit earlier. I think that everyone really needs that right now,” Angeles said. “I hope that we can reach out to the students with the hard times going on [and] make them feel like the world’s fine”

The room was packed with members of the Duquesne community young and old. Christmas music played over the speakers, but the sound was drowned out by guests talking with one another. An artificial fire was played on the TV screens and Residence Life set up a hot chocolate bar. Many participants could be seen doing a craft, while others were just there to drink hot chocolate and mingle with friends.

Sophomore Nayana Mulenga, a political science major, was one of the students in attendance.

What lured Mulenga to the event was the incentive of free hot chocolate.

“It’s also nice to meet new people on campus,” Mulenga said.

Another club in attendance was the Association for Information Systems, which promotes knowledge to students about the information technology field.

They chose a craft that would foster a sense of community. Each person was given part of a gingerbread house that they were free to decorate however they wanted, then one of the club members would assemble a complete gingerbread house out of each piece.

Senior Lenora Clavattari is studying accounting and information systems and is a member of the club.

She said gingerbread house building is something they have done within the organization before.

“The whole premise is that it takes a village, so we want each individual to come to the table and build one piece of a gingerbread house,” Clavattari said. “It’s a teamwork activity.”

The School of Education Ambassadors is a campus organization that does projects for the Greater Pittsburgh community. Going along with the holiday spirit, they are currently running a toy drive for students at the Pittsburgh King PreK-8, a Pittsburgh Public School.

Most clubs focused on the Duquesne student population, but this particular organization focused on a younger demographic. Many siblings of students and children of faculty were in attendance, so they curated an easy kid-friendly craft.

“[We want] to make an impact and get them ready for the Christmas spirit,”said Hannah Kiss, a freshman who joined the School of Education Ambassadors this year.

They provided clothes pins, markers and pipe cleaners for children to create a reindeer ornament that could be used to decorate a Christmas tree.

While the School of Education Ambassadors was focused on reaching out to the youth, Duquesne’s Hidden Opponent club had a goal of helping students reconnect with their inner child through coloring. Hidden Opponent is a mental health organization that works to destigmatize mental health issues that college students face.

One member, graduate student Madison Dickert, who is studying higher education, said Hidden Opponent chose to have a coloring table as their station because the activity is good for stimulating the mind.

She said that it was a chance for students to walk away from the stress of their lives.

“We hope for five minutes they can pretend to be a kid and be like, ‘I don’t care about anything other than my picture and coloring inside the lines, or even outside the lines,’” Dickert said.