Officials: Hey Day could be changed or canceled

Another Penn tradition is on the ropes.

University administrators said the behavior of "hundreds of students" during last Friday's Hey Day festivities was so deplorable that the tradition will be very different next year.

Possible changes include canceling the junior class' march through campus, changing the time of the event or even ending Hey Day altogether, according to Leah Smith, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life.

According to administrators, seniors took the celebration too far this year, throwing ketchup, mustard, eggs, shaving cream, soda, flour and a whole fish at juniors as they processed through campus.

Smith said hundreds of juniors did not even participate in Hey Day activities for fear of being assaulted. Others, she said, were found crying in Houston Hall, and one was almost hit in the eye with an egg shell.

But seniors insisted that the juniors enjoyed the activities as much as they did.

"I think everyone loves a good food fight," College senior Hillel Smith said. "I don't think there was any junior walking down the Walk who didn't really enjoy getting everything thrown at them and walking with all of their friends."

Wharton sophomore Zach Chodorow said he feels that administrators are overreacting.

"I don't think they should change it. It's a tradition, just like Spring Fling at the Quad. You don't have to participate in it if you don't want to," he said.

College junior Zachary Kern said the throwing of food could be removed without damaging the excitement of Hey Day.

"The part about Hey Day that was awesome was the picnic. The march was just an added amount of absurdity. I think it would be all right without it," he said.

Other aspects of the tradition include wearing red shirts, carrying canes and biting the foam hats donned by the juniors.

Both class-board officers and administrators had warned students beforehand that, if seniors continued to throw food and other objects at juniors during their procession, Hey Day could be canceled permanently.

These warnings were not unique to this year, however. Officials from the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life have threatened to change Hey Day -- during which juniors are officially declared seniors -- for the past several years.

Their complaints have focused on the relatively recent introduction of object-throwing on the part of the seniors during the juniors' procession. Seniors have mostly thrown food and condiments on Locust Walk.

And seniors said the food this year was not at all extreme.

"I think it's at a perfect level. All in good fun, no one getting hurt, but pretty wild," College senior Beth Rosen said. "It's a beautiful thing, getting people really dirty with nasty food."

By the end of the procession, many of the seniors were as dirty as the juniors.

"The seniors started throwing stuff before the juniors even got here," added Smith.

But the bottom line for throwing food was following tradition, according to Wharton senior Chrissy Choi.

Juniors agreed that it was ultimately a rite of passage.

"I think it's a fun part of the tradition. No one is doing it maliciously. They want to have fun, too; they're just pissed they have to graduate," College junior Elizabeth Hurst said of the Class of 2006.

Aside from the so-called hazing, Hey Day went off essentially as planned.

Once the juniors reached College Green, Penn President Amy Gutmann began a speech in which she proposed a final test of simple Penn trivia pronouncing the juniors to be seniors.

College senior Pierre Gooding, the senior-class president, then passed on the torch to Wharton junior Andrew Kaplan, the current junior-class president.

After attempting to rouse the class with a short speech, Kaplan said, "Dr. Gutmann, with all due respect, bite me!"

And he handed her his hat.

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