Best of Luck
to All This Fall
Semester
THE MEREDITH
’ ^FRALD
Q @meredithherald
@ @meredith_herald
#harktheherald
October 24, 2018
IN THIS ISSUE
NEWS
Constitutional Annendnnents
Up for Vote
Eco-Raleigh
Ring Dinner Reflection
A&E
Strange Halloween Stories
Transcending Otherness
Halloween Suggestions
OPINIONS
Scoot Away
Food Waste
Comic
New Coach:
Laquanda Quick
By Mimi Mays, Associate
Editor
This July, Meredith hired
Laquanda Quick as the new head
coach for the Avenging Angels bas
ketball team. Coach Quick, or Coach
Q as her players call her, comes
straight from an assistant coaching
and recruiting coordination position
at the University of West Florida.
During her two years there, the team
broke school records, won a regional
championship and went to the Elite
Eight—an honor in Division II bas
ketball.
Before that. Coach Q had her first
college coaching job at Winston-Sa
lem State University, in the city where
she was born and raised. She was ini
tially a high school basketball coach,
but once she got a taste of college
coaching, she vowed to never go back
to high school. Her current position
at Meredith is her first time as a head
coach of a college basketball team.
The StrongPoints pamphlet
tacked to her office door lists “focus,
learner, relator, individualization, re
storative,” though readers and players
alike m me that her sixth and seventh
top strengths are “competition” and
“strategic.”
Tell me a little bit about your own
experience playing basketball.
So, I played four years at UNC-Cha-
pel Hill—go Tar Heels. I was All-
American there; basically the top lo
to 15 players in the country are given
All-American status, so my jersey
hangs up in the gym over there. I was
a first-round draft pick in the WNBA,
so I played two years in Portland
and one year in San Antonio. I also
played during the off-season, because
WNBA is only four months in the
summertime, so I played overseas in
China, Israel and Turkey as well.
Cornhuskin' Changes for the Better
By Abigail Ojeda, News Editor
sleep-deprived angels are
ready to parade, perform and (yes)
shuck corn in Meredith’s 73rd annual
Cornhuskin’ event Deeply rooted
in campus tradition, Cornhuskin’
has evolved since it began in 1945,
transitioning from a brief yearly
event into a meticulously planned
annual extravaganza. No one on
campus knows more and has
been more involved in developing
Cornhuskin’ than the Vice President
for College Programs, Dr. Jean
Jackson. Since she graduated in
1975, she has maintained an active
interest in developing
this staple event into
a fantastic feature of a
Meredith fall semester.
Describing
Cornhuskin’ is a
difficult feat. Attempts
to characterize it as
“Meredith’s version
of homecoming” or a
“competition between
the classes” falls
short. The frequently
repeated line “You just
have to experience it”
shows that it is more
than just an event. As
an interview with Dr. Jackson reveals,
student contributions each year
make every Cornhuskin’ a unique
experience.
When Dr. Jackson first participated
in Cornhuskin’, the event was held
in Jones Auditorium. Interestingly,
this setting created the tone of
Cornhuskin’ because the performers
and audience members were students
only—therefore the skits could be
a bit more bawdy because no one
was concerned about their parents
watching them a few yards away.
In those days. Dr. Jackson
says, Cornhuskin’ was different in
two ways: complexity and spirit. She
reminisces, “When I was a student, I
thought we were doing really well if
we got over to Ridgewood and had a
posterboard and glitter.” The main
focus was on the skit and the word
parade because there were no dances.
Even the faculty used to perform
skits, but that event fell away at some
point. In the end, she adds, “the skit
has always been the main event in
one way or another.”
According to Dr. Jackson,
the spirit of Cornhuskin’ also used
to be far more mean and secretive.
For instance, other classes’ themes
would never be revealed, so “one
person fell through the ceiling
of Jones Auditorium trying to
overhear another class’s theme,” she
remembered. In a meaner spirit of
competition, students were getting
into water fights by dumping water
on each other as they walked under
breezeways. Most memorably, when
Dr. Jackson was the freshman class
president, she was kidnapped and
held for ransom by the sophomore
class. However, when the freshman
refused to pay the ransom, she was
eventually let go.
2003 Cornhuskin' Parade
Photo courtesy of Dr. Walton
In the late 1980’s, organizers
were compelled to move Cornhuskin’
out into the amphitheater because
Jones Auditorium was so crowded
that students were sitting on both
the seats and the armrests. In 1995,
the 50th anniversary. Dr. Jackson
was then vice president for student
development and moved Cornhuskin’
from Thursday to Friday. “People
thought I was going to kill
Cornhuskin,” she recalls. However,
this move allowed Cornhuskin’ to get
even bigger—more alumnae began to
return to the event and then parents
wanted to come. Ultimately, this
change created a major shift in the
scripts: “They cleaned up the scripts
a lot,” Dr. Jackson says, “since the
families started coming.”
Another addition Dr.
Jackson contributed was the after
Cornhuskin’ pancake dinner. “When
I was the vice president, I wanted
to institute something to keep
people on campus after the event—
or to at least put some food in their
stomachs-and that’s when the after
Cornhuskin’ breakfast began, which
was unexpectedly popular with
guests afterward.”
Current faculty member
and former Meredith student Dr.
Robin Colby, who participated
in Cornhuskin’, remembers the
excitement of the skits and the word
parade, but not dances. Since her
years as a student, Cornhuskin’ has
gotten grander. As she puts it, “The
scale is the major difference.” Now,
she and other faculty members
love to bring their kids to “just
experience it.” This newer, bigger,
production-style Cornhuskin’ seems
to be here to stay.
Many people are curious to
discover how Cornhuskin’ got
its name. Dr. Jackson points to A
History of Meredith College 1972-
19S9 by Mary Lynch Johnson,
which says that the name came
in deference to a midwestern
faculty member, Ms. Peterson,
who was then teaching in the
PE department. She said, ‘“corn
shucks are called ‘husks,’” and
the name Cornhuskin’ stuck. In
her book, Johnson noted that
“The [Cornhuskin’] contests
bring out unexpected talents,”
something that still holds true
to this day. Initially, a chicken
calling contest was replaced
by a cow milking contest, and
generations of students have added
or switched out the contests.
Now, in the words of Dr.
Jackson, Cornhuskin’ is “like a mini
Broadway show,” which is impressive
but causes concerns for students’
ability to afford Cornhuskin’. She
says, “One of the challenges with
modern day Cornhuskin’ is making
it fun, which means making it
accessible to the class.” It is Dr.
Jackson’s goal to see that everyone
who wants to participate can be able
to do so—the experience shouldn’t
be about what one can afford.
Also, the question of the
expansion of Cornhuskin’ persists.
How much “bigger and better” can
Cornhuskin’ get? “There seems to be
an expectation that each class one-
ups the last year’s class,” Dr. Jackson
reflects, “Instead, the challenge
should be ‘What can I remove or
maintain in a different way?’” While
the rivalry between classes does
exist, she acknowledged, it would
be helpful to focus more on getting
to know one’s own talents and the
talents of others. Dr. Jackson says,
“Maybe the first step is going back
to something simpler, returning to
the days of the pie-eating contest or
chicken calling.”
How was your time overseas?
It was fun; it was different...in Israel
and Turkey I adapted a little better
because most people spoke English,
it was often their second language,
but in China, everybody was speak
ing Chinese and nobody was speaking
English. The only person who spoke
English was my translator—an actual
person that went places with me to
translate for me. It’s a very difficult
language. And it was kind of funny
because I have this human being with
me who obviously can’t be with me
24 hours a day, and sometimes I want
to leave and go get food, so she would
literally have to write on a piece of
paper what I would show to the cab
driver to take me into the city. And
then you don’t really know what’s on
the menu, so you just point and hope
there are pictures. An interesting
experience for sure.
What’s your favorite memory from
playing basketball?
I was able to build some really genu
ine relationships with people. My col
lege teammates are my best friends;
these are people that were in my wed
ding, or people I go to for advice. So
just the relationships I built were my
most memorable things from playing.
COACH Continued on page 2