On the evening of Oct. 24, the class for Digital Media Communications Theory and History, DMC 100, hosted a Halloween party in Jewell Hall’s IDEAx lounge. Inside room 103, students set up a photobooth, haunted house walk-through set and Día de los Muertos altar, along with plenty of places to sit and hang out. The set will be available for everyone to experience until Halloween night on Oct. 31. The entire event was planned and executed by students using self-made decorations with some props supplied by the Theater Department. 

“I think the event ended successfully because each group completed their tasks to prepare and communicated with one another,” Jolia Bernal, a junior DMC major, said. “All members took part in the event and were able to apply their creative skills.”

Beginning as just an idea the week before fall break, the DMC 100 class eventually settled on the idea as their final project. The class then sectioned off into teams to brainstorm how to plan and execute the event. Their main focus was not whether or not the event  would be successful, according to Bernal.

“I was on the scene setup team and we prepared for the event by deciding on the theme of the room, collecting props from the Theater Department and setting the scene in the IDEAx room,” Bernal said. “I [also] had the opportunity to paint the backdrop for the photo booth at the event.”

During the week of Oct. 17, as the set team worked away decorating for the party, the advertisement teams posted on social media, distributed flyers and decorated campus sidewalks with chalk to get the word out.

“[The event] was successful due to the advertisements and the amount of chalk designs that were placed on campus,” Andrew Ivy, a junior theater major with a DMC minor, said. “Plus a lot of people walked in the first five minutes of the event.”

Overall, the event turned out “spook-tacular,” according to the class since many students from different areas of study showed up. Participants were given a quick tour through the haunted house set, then sent over to get jumpscared at the photobooth. Lastly, they were shown the Día de los Muertos altar and asked to take a survey about the event. Some students stayed to hang out and tell stories, while others grabbed candy and headed out for the night.

Photos courtesy of Koda Payton, the class of DMC 100 and the DMC Department.

Art Club at William Jewell College has had a bit of a stall the last few years, mainly due to COVID-19, but 2022-23 president Claire Henry, a senior digital media communications major, wants to increase engagement. This year she hopes to cater more to the ‘art’ aspect of the club.

“Art Club didn’t have as much of a presence on campus purely because we were coming out of a really intensive pandemic,” Henry said. “COVID-19 quarantine and social guidelines made it very hard to meet frequently, which is something I know a lot of clubs are dealing with this year.”

Although Henry has not been in the art club cabinet, she has been extensively involved with the general art community at Jewell and the creative activity as a hobby and profession over the past few years.

“I was reached out to by the previous cabinet and they asked if I’d like to run,” Henry said.  “I thought it would be a great opportunity especially in regards to what I want to go into professionally, so I said ‘yes.’”

As a digital media communications major, Henry dedicated her career to graphic design and illustration. However, it was unforeseen as she preferred sculpting in high school.

“I was very sculpture-focused when I was in high school, but I knew that I wanted to go into digital art,” Henry said. “Digital art was something I was pretty unfamiliar with at first. I started practicing graphic design in Adobe Illustrator and I just fell in love with it. Now I’m designing pretty much every day. I don’t think there’s any other career that I’d ever be interested in.“

Now comfortable with her choice in career, Henry said she wants to share her knowledge and help out others in regards to art as a whole.

“My main goal is to [better] establish Art Club on campus and try to make sure that it has more of a presence,” Henry said. “This year, we are going to focus more on the artists that work in the Stocksdale Gallery. The art club will be responsible for greeting them, helping them display their artwork and going to the exhibition openings.”

Art Club is scheduled to meet every Wednesday evening from 6 to 8 p.m., with the first open meeting being Sept. 21. Henry invites and welcomes all students to share their feedback and suggestions.

“We’re going to talk about everybody’s wants and needs with the art club,” Henry said. “Since we do have a budget, we’re going to talk about what kind of materials people want to see and what projects people want to work on. I think that we’re going to try to have some rolling projects, too, so that not every week is a new project. Hopefully, we’ll be able to reflect what our members want out of our club. I want to encourage anyone who is interested in any type of visual arts to come check out the club.”

This year’s cabinet consists of Henry, the president; Vice President Garrett Washington, a sophomore theatre major; Treasurer Sarah Coupland, a senior theatre major; and Secretary Marquis William, a musical theatre major.