With final exams looming on the horizon, some students look to the ancient tradition of rubbing Testudo’s nose for a critical morale boost. Others look to the high-five.
Today marks the seventh annual National high-five Day, and for a group of dedicated high-fiveing freshmen, it also marks the beginning of a tradition – it’s the first time the holiday will be celebrated at the university.
The university’s chapter of the National high-five Day Awareness Club began when James Sensor, the club’s president, came to the university this semester and conspired with his fellow high school friends to start a club.
“Our leader didn’t get here until spring semester,” said freshman letters and sciences major Eric Kaufman, “but we’re gonna try and pretty much through word of mouth, get everyone involved so we can do a bigger event next year.”
The day’s history is a storied one that involves a group of University of Virginia students and a great deal of alcohol.
“We were incredibly drunk at a bar one night, and one person … had the idea the night before for this holiday that centered around the high-five,” said Greg Harrell-Edge, who was a junior when he and his friends decided to start the holiday at the University of Virginia in 2002. “We set it up for the third Thursday in April because it was currently the third Monday in April, and that would give us three days or so to get it together.”
And the rest was history.
So will people embrace the hand-slapping high-five festivities here?
“Maybe as a joke,” said freshman criminology and criminal justice major Angela Mallich. “It’s a little awkward to just go up to someone and high-five them.”
But Kaufman maintains it’s more than a joke.
“It’s a good celebration,” he said. “It’s an everyone-gets-along kind of day.”
Harrell-Edge said he and his friends also see the day as an opportunity for activism.
“We thought that the high-five had been underappreciated. The pound was really just coming out, and we were strongly anti-pound,” he said. “We were just trying to raise awareness for the potential extinction of the high-five.”
The holiday’s promoters also point to the unifying spirit behind the holiday: Everyone knows how to high-five.
“[The high-five] shows unity and victory and success,” said freshman letters and sciences major Francine Jaume. “The high-five means something great is happening. It’s two people coming together.”
So, could something of that magnitude happen with higher-ups here?
“If Dan Mote high-fived me, I’d be a little awkwarded out,” sophomore computer science major Nicholas Bishop said. “We’re supposed to spend our whole time hating him, and here he is giving me a high-five. Still, I wouldn’t leave him hanging – I’d high-five him back.”
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