Devil’s night in the state of Michigan is the night before Halloween. Many students celebrated the spooky festivities with Oakland University Student Activity Fund Assessment Committee’s (SAFAC) Haunted Hallways event.
The Residence Life Association (RLA), Student Program Board (SPB), Student Video Productions (SVP), OU Student Congress (OUSC,) 88.3 FM WXOU, the Student Activities Funding Board (SAFB), and The Oakland Post – all joined together to put on the event.
Maggie Bassett, Treasurer of SPB and coordinator of Haunted Hallways spoke on what the event was like and how it was getting everyone involved.
“It really went like exactly how I wanted it to go,” Bassett said. “Everyone just was working together. We had volunteers come in who were so excited to work with us. I think the student body really enjoyed it.”
Every member of SAFAC there participated and decorated either a room in the basement of the Oakland Center or their office. Themes from WXOU’s “haunted ghost ship,” to OUSC’s “spooky circus” and The Oakland Post’s “Saw” escape room – fun and scares were had by all.
River Dyke, Program Director for WXOU and ghost pirate scare-actor, commented on how students reacted to the event.
“Some people thought it was more creepy, some people weren’t phased – but we had a pretty positive overall reaction,” Dyke said.
According to WXOU, they tied for first place in the scariest SAFAC Haunted Hallways room voting – a testament to how hard they worked not only in that event but throughout the semester.
Jack Waters, who is the Community Support Chair for OUSC, talked about what the process was like to put on such an elaborate showcase through Haunted Hallways.
“I ran a lot of OUSC’s involvement with the event, decorating the event, getting material for the event…” Waters said. “I thought that there were a good amount of people who really enjoyed the experience and I’m happy with it.”
Both Bassett and Waters noted that a SAFAC-collaborate event is always fun to work. Bassett in particular was enthusiastic about having this much control in putting on an event and how glad she was that it turned out to be a success.
“It meant a lot that everyone was super comfortable coming to me,” Bassett said. “Everyone was just super excited to help out.”
Waters also shared that sentiment.
“I think that when you collaborate on stuff like this more… personally, I’m a really big fan of like just getting everybody together and working on something good and fun for everybody,” Waters said.
After the event, SVP put on a showing of the movie Beetlejuice, a fitting end to the festivities. There were 251 people in attendance for Haunted Hallways, according to Bassett.
For more information about SPB and their future events, visit their MySail page at mysail.oakland.edu/groups/student-program-board/.
