Viking Days breaks old traditions

Homecoming celebrations encourages campus collaboration

As Augustana’s annual homecoming festivities wrap up, this year’s Viking Days uniquely blended tradition and innovation. The Viking Days Committee placed a strong emphasis on fostering community connections and collaborating with various groups on campus to create a more inclusive atmosphere. 

Viking Days co-chair, junior Mallorie Schultz, came up with the community emphasis last year during the beginning phases of planning. Now, Schultz’s goal is complete, as nearly every event throughout homecoming week was a collaboration with another organization on campus. 

“We want to make more of a community feel and embrace the community on our campus because, while it is Viking Days, we wouldn’t have Viking Days if we didn’t have our community and everybody else who’s involved,” Schultz said.

This year, the organization partnered with Letters of Love, a club that makes handmade cards for children in hospitals, for the annual Sailing Into Service event. Last year’s Sailing Into Service wrote letters to alumni. This year, with the help of Letters of Love, the organization wrote over 300 letters to send to children suffering from chronic illnesses. 

This year’s schedule also featured a partnership with the Union Board of Governors for Viking Days’ annual Thunder Road night, a first for the celebration. 

“This gives everyone a chance to enjoy the festivities without the usual pressures of planning and executing events,” Schultz said.

Co-head governor of UBG, junior Alex Folgar, explained that UBG and Viking Days split the cost to afford the expensive event. With the addition of UBG’s committee, more people were available to assist with bus duty and being a welcoming crowd. 

This homecoming, one big tradition was broken — the Viking Days court did not contain an equal number of male-identifying and female-identifying students. This year’s court featured two men and eight women. In 2021, the former Viking Days committee decided gender would no longer be a factor in deciding royalty court to make those who do not identify as male or female feel comfortable and included. Now, any two Augustana seniors can be voted for by the student body. 

“This is the very first year where we’ve seen an influx of women than men,” Schultz said. “In the years previous, I guess it was always five and five or six and four, so nobody really noticed. But honestly, I like it. Those ten people are on there because those are the ten people that are involved on campus. I can’t imagine anybody else.”

Augustana President Stephanie Herseth Sandlin explained that as you steward traditions, it makes sense to adapt existing traditions and begin new ones. 

“It reflects to me a lot of students who I have observed and gotten to know who care deeply about our core value of community and have undertaken various different efforts to make it a stronger community not just for themselves and their friends, but for everybody,” Herseth Sandlin said.

In her welcome speech at coronation, Assistant Professor of Education Becky Fiala highlighted changes to homecoming traditions throughout Augustana’s history. 

Schultz noted that part of the reason for the imbalance could be due to the uneven gender distribution of Augustana’s population. Women also seem to be more involved in major organizations like UBG, Viking Days, SKOL and Welcome Week which all have majority or entirely female boards, Schultz explained. 

Senior Mia Fank, a royalty elect, was happy with the candidates. 

“The people that are brought on to court are there for a reason, and I don’t think it has anything to do with gender specifically,” Fank said. 

Fank was surprised to find out that she had been chosen to be on court. 

“I was completely shocked,” Fank said. “I didn’t really think I was perceived in that way. I didn’t really know how much of a difference I was making.” 

Fank said she was excited to participate in events like Ole Olympics and the iconic parade in a new role, focusing on representing her peers and the community. 

Fank said it was a good year of connectivity between all the candidates – echoing the committee’s aim of creating unity among participants. 

Ultimately, one queen and one king were elected, seniors Gabriela Jancikova and Azam Shaik. Jancikova is a sociology and environmental studies major, member of the Augustana women’s tennis team and building supervisor at the Elmen Center. Shaik is a data science, quantitative economics and finance major as well as a viking advisor and student ambassador.

Both are international students with Jancikova hailing from Šošůvka, Czech Republic, and Shaik from Hyderabad, India.