| Traditions | |
- Boxapalooza: Wash U isn’t sponsored by Anheuser-Busch for nothing. Every year, student groups, including fraternities, KWUR radio station staff, and RAs, organize teams to compete in this very healthy relay event. Each runner must drink a beer following every lap of a race, until a case of beer is finished. Whoever manages to actually finish this event without puking should receive a medal of honor, although only the first three teams receive official recognition.
- Dance Marathon: Participants dance for twelve hours straight to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network, which provides services for kids with cancer. The marathon commonly brings in professional dance groups, like the Rams cheerleaders, and includes other entertainment events. The event usually raises as much as $50,000 and includes 150–200 dancers.
- EnWeek: The most unusual members of the University (yes, I’m referring to the engineering students) finally show their pride (and their pale, pasty faces) in spectacular fashion for one week in the spring semester. They stage all kinds of bizarre and cool events, including three-dollar pizza lunches and a popular contest in which volunteer engineering students are duct-taped, feet off the ground, to one of the columns in the engineering complex.
- Powder Puff: The Alpha Phi sorority stages a full-tackle football game between two teams entirely made of its own members. It gets good when conditions are muddy, since the game will essentially deteriorate into an all-girl mud-wrestling match. This brings out the shameless chauvinist in all guys who walk by.
- Streaking the Row: On the first night of Frat Row’s opening, fraternity and sorority members like to show what they’re made of, literally. Since a number of fraternities have moved off of the Row, this tradition might slowly fade, but there’s still a hard-core group that should keep the tradition alive.
- Thurtene: The nation’s biggest student-run carnival, Thurtene has all kinds of rides, a ferris wheel, funnel cake, a haunted house, and goofy skits written, produced, and acted out by members of Wash U fraternities and sororities. It’s for the kids, but a great time for the people who organize it, too.
- WILD: It stands for Walk In Lay Down, although We’ll Imbibe Like Dubliners and Wash U Incited Licentious Drinking also fit the bill. Twice a year, the University pays for a top band/performer to play a free outdoor concert for the entire student body. Past stars have included Busta Rhymes, Talib Kweli, the Roots, Counting Crows, Jurassic 5, and the Black Eyed Peas.
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