Cindy Duan ’28 (left) and Julianne Neff ’28 (right) try on various costume props at Quad Night.
Students brought excitement to Quad Night last Saturday, which featured food stands, inflatable attractions, and dorm-run activity tables. This year’s Quad Night also included a slushie stand and firepits for roasting marshmallows.
The lighting of the event was a newer logistical factor for Quad Night. Before becoming an evening tradition in 2025, the event took place during the day. According to Christopher Capano, Director of Student Activities, the shift in timing was driven largely by student schedules and attendance.
“For the longest time it used to be ‘Quad Day,’ and we would do it on Sunday afternoon. But we started to realize that the crowds were getting smaller and smaller because [students] have so much homework and [on] Mondays, all seven periods meet. We switched it to Quad Night a few years ago. We noticed that the kids stuck around. It was a bigger crowd, and we’ve been doing it since,” said Capano.
In preparation for Quad Night, students worked in dorms to organize an activity table. Booths featured caricature drawing, card games, and tarot readings. Clio Canellos ’30 identified the student-run caricature drawing as an enjoyable attraction.
“The caricatures were super fun. Everyone enjoyed the funny faces, and I really liked how I saw people in my grade drawing them, which made it more fun,” said Canellos.
Having attended Quad Night in the past, Chance Hernandez ’29 enjoyed the larger selection of activities this year and found the human foosball attraction to be amusing.
“[Quad Night] is an opportunity for people to have fun experiences with their friends. I had expectations from last year, which are being lived up to so far, as well as all the inflatable stuff, which is humorous in the degrading nature of tying yourself up to a rope… There’s more areas to explore, so it’s more time you can spend here,” said Hernandez.
For many students, the event served as a leisurely opportunity to bond across residential boundaries. Cyrus Law ’27 also noted that the night provided a relaxing space for the broader student body to ease into the fall term.
“[Quad Night] helps people get a better sense of dorm community, especially in the quads, but it’s also something that anyone in other clusters can enjoy too. [The purpose of Quad Night is] to have fun and take it easy from the start of Fall term, kind of [to] set the mood,” said Law.
Though the goal of fostering student connection and fun remains the same, the attractions and food options change slightly each year. Capano mentioned adding a new food item next year in response to student requests.
“[This year,] we rented more rides… we had four rides this year and only three the year before. We did snow cones or slush this year, which was a new one. I know next year we want to do fried dough. A couple kids asked me, and I was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely,’ so for [Quad Night next year], we’ll have fried dough,” said Capano.
After attending both Fall Carnival and Quad Night, Cannelos suggested a more cohesive range of activities for Quad Night in the future.
“I really like the maze from the Fall Carnival. Maybe they could have a Quad Night theme or something because I really enjoyed how the carnival had a theme where they had the corn maze and the bull, but this one didn’t seem to have a theme [to unify] it,” said Canellos.
