Juniors celebrate Hey Day

They could not be stopped. As the members of the Class of 1995 marched from Hill Field to Junior Balcony in the Quadrangle to College Green, they only had one thing on their minds -- becoming seniors. And nothing could stand in the way of this red-shirted mass of excited -- and inebriated -- Hey Day participants. Even the streets were cleared by University Police to allow the marchers to pass. "It's like we're?molten lava. We're just moving," said Engineering junior Andrew Goodale. "We can conquer anything right now?a small country would fall to us." Goodale added that the excitement during the event was "unbelievable." The Hey Day activities started at noon Friday with a Dining Services picnic in Hill Field. By 3 p.m., when the crowd gathered at the field's gate waiting for the march to begin, no one was thinking much about food. Taking bites out of each other's styrofoam hats and banging their wooden canes on anything and everything around them, the students enjoyed this decades-old tradition to its fullest extent. "It's exciting, it's amazing," said College junior Donna Sartz. "The people that haven't seen each other since freshman year are getting happy and hugging each other, and it's just a nice closure to junior year." As the group converged on Junior Balcony, a melee of cane-banging, hat-biting and loud cheering ensued for almost 30 minutes. And although open bottles of Jack Daniels and the like were prevalent at the scene, the group remained amazingly composed -- the atmosphere was pure celebration. When the mass finally embarked on the longest portion of the march -- from the Quad to College Green via Superblock -- it became apparent that the entire University was celebrating with the junior class. Hundreds of people lined Locust Walk -- many with drinks in hand -- to watch and cheer on the juniors as they walked their way to seniorhood. At 4 p.m., Interim President Claire Fagin and Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson gave their first and last Hey Day addresses to a screaming crowd. "Our Hey Day was special because it was the last year with [former President] Sheldon Hackney," said Senior Class President Matt Canner. "But this year [is] Claire Fagin's only Hey Day, so that will be special as well." Fagin -- who needed to quiet the crowd several times in order to speak -- finally got the words out that the massive drunken crowd was waiting to hear. "And now, by the power invested in me by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, I now pronounce you seniors!" she said. After an intense roar of the crowd which lasted several minutes, Lazerson made his speech, which was only one sentence in length. "As the University's chief academic officer," he began to a small chorus of boos, "I hope that you will continue to party?through next year." The crowd roared once more, and then settled for a moment to watch Canner pass a ceremonial gavel to Senior Class President-Elect Loren Mendell. Mendell's speech was also quite brief due to the crowd's noise, as he was only able to get out the words, "We're now officially seniors!" Fagin described her only Hey Day as a "fabulous" event, adding that it was one of the best moments of her interim presidency. "I think we've had a lot of good moments actually, but this one is very exciting -- except for the smell of beer," she said. "It brings people together, it gives people joy, it gives people fun [and] it makes them ready to be alumni later, because everything like this you remember." Sartz said while the day's activities were very exciting, a "fear of the future" still loomed in many students' minds. "This is, in one respect, a bittersweet event because it means we have to be seniors and face real life, which is kind of scary," she said.