As David Piper waltzed into Adele’s on Friday, his fellow graduate students welcomed him with laughter and applause. That’s because the library sciences graduate student, a fully-bearded man, was dressed as Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Piper’s costume took home third prize in the Graduate Student Government’s Grad Pub costume contest, held on Friday at Adele’s in the Stamp Student Union. The GSG hosts Grad Pub, a bi-weekly event, to provide graduate students with a social event at the university and offer relief from the heavy workloads the students bear.
At Friday’s Grad Pub, a special Halloween-themed event, costumes ranged from the conventional, such as witches and cowgirls, to the unique, such as Megaman and an ambassador from Mali. Brody Remington, the university’s vice president for university relations, and GSG President Anupama Kothari judged students’ garb and gave out flash drives to the three best costumes. All participants received coupons to eateries in Stamp.
The costume choices often reflected the students’ more specialized studies. Some, such as library sciences student Will Robey, who dressed as a Byzantine emperor, had costumes that were very specific and tailored to their interests, while a fire protection engineering student simply dressed in what he wore in the field as an engineer in the Southwest.
Remington was impressed with the intricacy of people’s costumes.
“I was expecting three or four costumes that were done at the last minute, but these have been very creative and different,” Remington said. “It’s really tough [to choose winners].”
First prize went to Tracy Moore, a physics graduate student who dressed up as a carbon nanotube, wearing a web of hexagonally arranged drinking straws.
“It took about three man-hours between two people to build,” Moore said.
Robey won second place with his Byzantine imperial outfit, which was put together mostly from home-made robes. Piper tied for third place with a self-described modern Venician princess, and his Palin costume included a red blouse and full make-up.
“It really just gets on my nerves, and this is a way to show my disdain,” Piper said. “The costume took me about an hour and a half to put together, and my mom actually helped me put the make-up on.”
Grad Pub is an important social outlet for graduate students, GSG’s director of operations Roberto Münster said.
“In general graduate students are really busy, often doing research til late at night,” Münster said. “It’s good to have a time once in a while to hang out with other grad students.”
In the past, Grad Pub had been held in a room at the alumni center, which only held about 75 people, Münster said. The move to Adele’s this semester, which has a capacity of 176, has resulted in a big boost to attendance at the events, he added.
“At the Alumni Center, we only got 100 to 150 people over the course of a Grad Pub,” Münster said. “We’ve had Grad Pubs with over 300 people over the semester, with around 150 at any given time.”
Remington, who helped sponsored Friday’s Grad Pub, also noticed the increased turnout.
“I attended one last year,” Remington said. “This one is much larger, maybe even twice as large.”
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