The beginning of Harding\u2019s football season is upon us, and with it comes tailgating at Bison Park in front of the Ganus Activities\u2019 Complex. Tailgating is one of the many ways students on campus can mingle with one another over food, fellowship and football. For returning students, tailgating is a return to their friends, social clubs and what is familiar. However, for freshmen and transfers, going to an unfamiliar setting with unknown people can seem intimidating. Tailgates are a great place to build relationships, and these new additions to the Harding University family are welcomed with open arms through their own festivities.<\/p>\n
Harding\u2019s program for freshmen and transfer students, First Year Experience (FYE), will host a tent with activities and free food available to all freshmen looking for a place to plug into during the tailgate. Harding\u2019s ultimate frisbee team, HU Apocalypse will also be at the FYE tent to visit with freshmen as well. Assistant Director of First Year Experience and Students in Transition, Caitlin Denton, said that any freshman can come to a tailgate, regardless if they are pursuing membership in a social club or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of times, tailgating seems to be reserved just for clubs.\u201d Denton said. \u201cWe want to use this as an opportunity for people who aren\u2019t in clubs yet, and to get to experience a tailgate, and to feel like they have a place and to try and break them in to the whole atmosphere of Harding tailgating and Harding sports at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carter Bramlett, president of men\u2019s social club TNT, said that going to a tailgate reflects the diverse student population of Harding and that tailgating is a great way to build a sense of community with peers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you were to take a picture of the whole area where the tailgating is going on, I think it\u2019d be really cool to show the representation that Harding kind of has to offer,\u201d Bramlett said. \u201cAll these different groups of people [are] coming together supporting our school and having a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n
For freshmen or students who have never been to a tailgate, it may seem intimidating. However, Impact co-director, senior Luke Humphrey, who is also the senior male representative for the Student Association, invites those students to come and enjoy the festivities at Bison Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love for every freshman to come to at least the first tailgate and see how neat of an experience it is,\u201d Humphrey said. \u201cI think once they see how coordinated and fun tailgates are, I think they’ll be itching to come back for more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first tailgate will take place Sept. 14 in Bison Park prior to the Harding versus University of Arkansas-Monticello football gamae.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The beginning of Harding\u2019s football season is upon us, and with it comes tailgating at Bison Park in front of the Ganus Activities\u2019 Complex. Tailgating is one of the many…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15158,"featured_media":13476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13470"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13474,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470\/revisions\/13474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}