CORRECTION: A previous version of this article had the incorrect class year of a source and stated that there were two step shows when there was only one. Elon News Network regrets this error.
On Saturday, May 3, Elon University’s Black Student Union Board hosted its annual Coolin' on the Commons at the Academic Village in partnership with Elon’s National Pan-Hellenic Council and Student Government Association. This year included a step show, food trucks and a bounce house.
Junior Maleah Proctor, BSU president, talked about the process of creating the event and mentioned that exposure to NPHC is what she was hoping students would get out of an event like this.
“We've been working on this since before January, honestly,” Proctor said. “We started pitching ideas in December, came back in January, started having meetings, and now this is the fruition of all that hard work. So I'm really excited.”
This year’s event also incorporated a new element to the step show competition – fundraising. Proctor said the event raised money for Allied Churches of Alamance County Inc., which focuses on collecting resources and providing support for homeless people.
Proctor said this year there were two competitions during the step show - one for fundraising and one for the performance.
“As a part of the step show, we incorporated a fundraising competition. So there was two dual competitions going on,” Proctor said. “There was a fundraising competition and then the actual performance element.”
Seven out of the eight Black greek letter organizations that are a part of Elon NPHC competed in the step show, including Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
Junior Kashawn Myers, BSU vice president, said he hopes that students who attended this event were able to leave with a sense of community.
“Just a fun interaction to see that NPHC and BSU is more than just parties or events,” Myers said. “It's a fun time where you become and make a community and compete in service and do have a good time with your friends.”
Myers also explained how the possibility of rain could have impacted the show. While there was a bit of rain, it was not enough to completely rain out the events, which ended about two and a half hours earlier than expected.
“There was a backup plan to move indoors. It would have been in Alumni Gym,” Myers said. “The hard part would have been making sure that the stage and the sound would have got moved in time. So I think if we would have had to move indoors, we probably would have had to delay the show a couple hours, and that probably wouldn't have been what people wanted.”
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. won both the step show and fundraising competitions.
Junior Mikayla Williams, who is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. but did not perform in the show, said it's important to hold events like this because it highlights different communities and cultures.
“It's really important to kind of support and highlight different communities and different spaces on campus,” Williams said. “So especially for people who don't have exposure to the NPHC community outside of events like this, it's really important to provide that space so that they can learn more about it and become more comfortable with being in those spaces and supporting those groups.”