On Friday, Jan. 22, the Student Union Board of Governors announced on its Instagram page that One Ton Sundae, the UConn tradition of filling up a bucket with Dairy Bar ice skim, would be back for the form 2021 semester on Friday, Feb. 12 from 11 ante meridiem to 4 post meridiem on the Student Union Terrace. Students concerned in attending were required to sign up via a Google shape, according to the stake .
Tianna Felder, SUBOG ’ s major weekends president and sixth-semester consumer behavior major, said SUBOG was unable to conduct One Ton Sundae in its traditional format due to COVID-19 restrictions. alternatively of students selecting their own ice rink cream during the event, they will receive pre-scooped buckets .
“ Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, we must follow, such as the number of students allowed on the terrace at once, we had to limit the number of available spots for One Ton Sundae, ” Felder said. “ With all of these factors and the reduce on-campus attendance, we determined 400 buckets was a fair maximum. ”
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Before the event was planned, the 400 student maximal was determined after analyzing data from previous SUBOG on-campus events during COVID-19 and anterior One Ton Sundae events, Felder said .
“ As a result, we planned the acquittance of sign ups so that students would have the unharmed inaugural workweek of quarantine to sign up, ” Felder said. “ Turn [ s ] out for Homecoming week and other in-person SUBOG events this year has not come remotely close to 400 students. consequently, we did not expect to run out of spots therefore cursorily. ”
“ Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, we must follow, such as the number of students allowed on the terrace at once, we had to limit the number of available spots for One Ton Sundae. ”
One Ton Sundae had to be a one-day consequence because SUBOG does not have enough volunteers to distribute the pre-scooped buckets over multiple days, Felder said .
“ many members do not live on or are not even close to campus, and handing out 400 buckets of ice cream takes a distribute of hands, ” Felder said. “ SUBOG is a scholar organization run by students and working to accommodate as many students as potential at an event like this, and we must be considerate of those working the consequence equally well. ”
Felder said One Ton Sundae will not happen again during the give 2021 semester .
“ One Ton Sundae has been an consequence that happens once during Winter Weekend, ” Felder said. “ It requires collaboration with organizations and groups early than SUBOG and doing it more than once would break the freshness of our beloved One Ton Sundae tradition. ”
Before the sign-up form went live, SUBOG posted a puzzle on their feed and narrative telling students to be prepared for upcoming in-person events, Felder said .
Some University of Connecticut students were not pleased with the planning of the event .
Jeremy Weingarten, an eighth-semester allied health sciences major, said he saw the sign-up announcement approximately 16 hours after the Friday, Jan. 22 Instagram post and was ineffective to secure a spot .
Weingarten said he thinks the 400 student utmost was besides humble of a phone number to represent the current on-campus student population .
“ As a senior, I have always tried to sign up for the One Ton Sundae, but every year it has either conflicted with my classes or SUBOG ran out of ice cream, ” Weingarten said. “ UConn needs to show more enterprise in helping students enjoy their time on campus and not good making an event to say they had one. ”
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Ava Kovlakas, an eighth-semester anthropology major, said she saw the sign-ups soon after @ subogatuconn posted. Since there was no deadline, she waited until later in the day to submit and was informed that the event reached its capacity .
“ Registration didn ’ thymine seem to be open long, so students who hadn ’ triiodothyronine happened to check their call and specifically Instagram would have absolutely no chance of getting a ice-cream sundae, ” she said .
Kovlakas said she thought the sign-ups would be a great way to make certain students can get a ice-cream sundae .
“ Considering the current site, it makes dispatch feel that there would be a cap on sign-ups for a democratic consequence that ’ s dependent on food and in-person contact, ” Kovlakas said. “ But it ’ s barely that, a popular and iconic UConn event. It makes me wonder how many total people have been able to get ice-cream sundae in past years. ”
Allegra Mendiratta, a second-semester applied mathematics major, said she understands why there is a limit to how many students can attend One Ton Sundae .
“ I understand that SUBOG can entirely have limited numbers, but I wish they could have spread one of the biggest events over several days, ” Mendiratta said. “ I ’ ve never been and I was actually excite to go. ”
Jailynn Vidro, an eighth-semester psychological sciences major, said she did not get a reserved spot and wished she got more of a heads up from SUBOG .
“ It is actually unfortunate because I had no theme the event was happening, so as a aged, I didn ’ metric ton tied get a probability to participate because by the clock the submissions were closed, I had barely found out, ” Vidro said .
A few of the Instagram comments noted they encountered technical difficulties when they tried to sign up for the event. Felder said students had to be signed in with their UConn e-mail to fill out the shape, which may have caused the topic. She said SUBOG re-added the connection in their bio and had its Outreach team responding to direct messages to help students .
Jessica Wiener, an eighth-semester communication major, said she had trouble with the Google form and was unable to become one of the 400 students who will receive a One Ton Sundae. She said she was logged into her UConn e-mail report but still could not complete the form .
“ It ’ s very disheartening that the sign ups for such a playfulness and popular event closed so fast, specially because I was having technical difficulties with the Google shape that I did not get a chance to fix before they announced the settlement, ” Wiener said .
For the 400 students who were able to successfully fill out the shape, they will be able to pick their frost cream flavors and individually wrapped toppings for their pre-scooped buckets, Felder said.
“ Since everything is already disposed they will get to their ice-cream sundae in a agile time, ” she said .
For the students who did not get one of the reserve spots, Felder said students will have the gamble to pick up any unclaimed buckets .
“ At the end of the consequence, if there are buckets that have not been picked up by students who signed up, students have the opportunity to claim them, ” she said. “ In response to students voicing how they feel about the 400 limits, we are looking into opening a pair more spots specifically for seniors. ”
