Lack of leaders leaves 2010 ‘Hunt’-less

Suffering from a lack of logistical support, the popular Winter Term scavenger challenge known as The Hunt will not occur this year.

The event invited students to form teams, complete a series of tasks and submit answers, with prizes for the most successful teams.

Last year, teams were limited to 10 students. Organizers based the challenges on similar competitions at the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Students organizers ultimately did not get the student volunteers necessary to get the event off the ground.

“Many people expressed interest in providing logistical support and writing questions at the activities fair in the fall, but when it came to holding meetings and setting up communication there wasn’t much collective response,” Hunt organizer Will Silton ’10 said.

“Those of us trying to get the Hunt off the ground this year have been busy with other commitments all year; doing all of the leg work ourselves was out of the question.”

Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Project on Innovation in the Liberal Arts, said a generous donor had and would continue to fund the event.

“We have had and will continue to have funds from an alumni donor for the prize money as well as some resources for publicity and marketing if needed,” she said.

“Last year the SGA supported The Hunt and the students who ran it were able to do a lot more with the event. Resources are not why the hunt is not happening this year.”

Rather than putting additional pressure on students to organize or forming a campus club, Silton opted to remain true to the original intent of the competition.

“The point of the Hunt, anyway, is to get students involved with something fun and creative outside the usual academic arena,” he said.

“It was meant to be a grassroots-level initiative, something fun and exciting, but also brief, that students pursue purely out of intellectual and artistic curiosity.”

Silton said the event primarily attracted underclassmen who were looking for something creative and fun to do during Winter Term when they had enough time for those types of activities.

“Students have a little less work and a little more time,” he said.

“The Hunt was meant to dissuade students from playing video games in their room all day and having something fun to do on campus when they aren’t skiing or partying.”

While he remains hopeful that the competition will begin once again, Silton acknowledges it will likely require a creative-minded underclassman.

“I think for the Hunt to become more popular it’s going to take some strong-willed, resourceful, inventive underclassmen to get the ball rolling again and spark interest amongst their classmates,” he said.

Examples of previous questions include a challenge to participants asking them to fly a paper plane through the window under the clock at McCardell Bicentennial Hall and another asking them to build a soapbox car to race down Mead Chapel Hill.

Robinson hopes students will get involved and bring The Hunt back for next year and believes they will.

“I am really hoping that some students will step forward to run it next year,” she said. “I would be happy to talk to anyone who is interested. It will be back next year. Students who are missing it will take the lead, I am sure.”

Anyone interested in bringing back The Hunt should contact Robinson.