News

Changes in Spy vs Spy bring greater turnout

Loading

After a week of paranoia and a quick burst of all out chaos, Andrea Boss emerged the victor of last year’s Spy vs. Spy competition.

The last 10 or so spies had fallen in a giant shootout on the quad and only two remained. They had an alliance together to split the reward, so they shot at each other for bragging rights.

This year’s Spy vs. Spy competition, in its fourth day, is the largest competition ever on campus.

Rachel Bannert, co-Director of Student Events and Activities (SEA), said this year’s competition started with 237 participants, up from last year’s 153.

“This year we moved Spy vs. Spy earlier; last year it was right before finals and so we got a lot of pushback from people saying ‘This is so crazy, I’m so busy and I don’t have time to be paranoid,’” said Bannert.

Responding to the stress on competitors last year, SEA decided to change when Spy vs. Spy would take place and believe the increase in numbers is partically because of this change.

This year, the winner will not be a repeat, as Andrea Boss decided not to participate.

“It’s like, might as well go out on top,” said Boss.

“Doing it once and winning was fulfilling, [but a] second time I don’t know if I want to handle the paranoia.”

Even though enrollment is ostensibly higher than last year’s due to earlier scheduling, Boss said last year the paranoia of Spy vs. Spy didn’t prevent her from exercising good study habits.

“Actually Spy vs. Spy made me spend a lot of time in the library because it is a safe place, so I studied in there a lot,” said Boss. “[But] for a lot of people the stress of finals plus the paranoia of Spy vs Spy would be to much to handle.”

Boss also thinks the competition promotes unity on campus.

“It makes you go and meet people you’ve never met before and makes you go to places you usually don’t go,” said Boss.

Bannert also said that Spy vs. Spy can bring people at the University that don’t know each other together and that It is a way to get to know people you wouldn’t normally know.

For Bannert, the competition also has a unique demographic that it reches compared to other campus-wide activities during the school year.

“One of the things that i really love about Spy vs. Spy is a lot of people come up to me and say [they] never do things on campus and that this is the one thing that they do,” said Bannert.

“Spy vs spy gets people involved who normally wouldn’t be involved because its not a whole lot of commitment for one or two days of fun.”

Comments are closed.