Campus will be flooded with green and white this week as UND celebrates Homecoming. Every day  this week there will be events students can attend to show off their school spirit.

Starting the week of celebration will be the kickoff lunch, where students an get a taco in a bag. Homecoming king and queen will also be coronated. Tuesday there will be free ice cream in the Memorial Union and Avengers at 9 p.m. Wednesday marks the spirit showdown which will be held in the Walsh quad. Free pizza will be served from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday there will be bazooka ball at the wellness center from 5 to 7 p.m. Wrapping up the week is UND’s spirit day, where students are encouraged to wear their Green and White gear. A dance will be held in the Memorial Union ballroom at 9 p.m.

The weekend kicks off early Saturday morning when the Homecoming parade starts at 10 a.m. Then the highlight of the entire homecoming week wraps up with the football game. The Green and White are coming off an upset of #16 Portland State and looking to continue their success against Idaho State. We expect the football game to be well attended.  The Green and White are off to a great start with a 4-1 record.

Homecoming is an exciting time for all UND stakeholders to come together. Students and alumni can use homecoming to come together in order to create a great sense of community.

However, there is a separation between students and alumni. At every sporting event there is a section reserved for students only. The student section facilitates a great sense of community between students but everyone else has to fit in around the student section, creating a separation between the two groups.

In order to create a sense of a single UND community that includes everyone, UND should invite alumni to the events that are going on throughout the week. It would be great to see students sharing similar stories of their time at UND with alumni while savoring a bowl of ice cream.

However, it would be inappropriate to invite alumni to every event. The school dance on Friday would be really awkward if alumni the same age as our parents were dancing with people who will be able to vote for the first time in 2016.

Even if UND did change how they run homecoming week, it is impossible for the university to force the community to come together. It is up to the students, alumni and Grand Forks locals to intermingle and create an even better connected university.

We’re excited for this week of fun-filled activities and we hope to see many of the students out at the events around campus.