Viking Days has been a long-standing Portland State University tradition. At the beginning of each year, the PSU campus is full of events to welcome both returning students and incoming freshmen in a new school season—these days make up the annual Viking Days. While returning students are used to the posters and emails advertising all of these events, incoming freshmen may not be fully aware of all the campus happenings and what they offer.
As a new student, it can be difficult to adjust to new surroundings and find the right people to be around, which is what Viking Days aims to fix.
“Whether you’re a brand new student discovering the PSU campus for the very first time or a returning student kicking off the new academic year, there are a number of events available to help you celebrate your start!” reads the official Viking Days 2024 webpage. “All events are free and open to all PSU students and employees.”
Student Health and Counseling (SHAC) is best known for providing medical and mental health care to students, but now for twelve years, they have hosted a Block Party during each Viking Days event series. This year, they held it on September 27.
“Block Party is really just an event for PSU students to come together to kick off the new school year,” said Tenaya Stine, Marketing & Communications Director for SHAC. “It’s to promote SHAC and let students know about the services that we offer, and how they can access them. I think one of the biggest things is that it allows all of our providers and our staff, and really our full SHAC team to be outside of the building in a space that’s really casual and approachable for students to ask questions.”
“We have students make hair kits because we have tons of swag,” Stine continued. “We have a DJ. We give out free lunch. So there’s pizza that we serve from Sizzle Pie. We have dairy free, gluten free, [and] vegan [options]. We have cotton candy with a cotton candy machine, which our staff makes, [and] fresh pop popcorn.”
Block Party is a sizable event that takes up half of the street directly outside of the SHAC building.
Some of the planned activities this year were rock painting, therapy dog visits, a condom toss game, giant Jenga and more.
Another staple part of Viking Days for the past few years has been an annual drag show hosted by the Queer Resource Center. This year, it was scheduled for September 28.
While these particular events have already passed this year, there will still be numerous festivities until October 5. These include Night at the Rec, an evening spent playing games and sports in the campus recreation center, a football game between the PSU Vikings and UC Davis, and more.
Most notable is Party in the Park, a day in which many of the student organizations and resources on campus gather in the parks for tabling, games and other activities.
“So you know [how] in animes a lot of them are set in middle school and high school, and [it’s] kind of expected that you have to be a part of a club?” said Nayeli Naranjo-Robles, Coordinator of Student Operated Services and Student Organization Advisor as she discusses Party in the Park. “There’s usually an episode where they’re deciding what club they’re going to be a part of. It’s like, those are all of the culturally specific groups. Oh, those are all of the engineer groups, the science groups, the arts groups. I oversee the arts. We do have a few Greek Life chapters here—so if somebody’s interested in Greek life, they might find them at the table and get more information about them, and then see if they want to join an email list.”
Essentially, Party in the Park is one large club fair taking place in the south park blocks. But it also acts as an incentive for students to learn more about their school groups and to socialize. One of the ways this is done is through free food. Tabling clubs and organizations will provide tokens for students to collect after enough engagement.
“If you go to a certain amount of tables and get enough tokens, you can get free lunch, because we’re also going to have food offered,” said Naranjo-Robles. “We usually have some sponsors. Last year we had IKEA, and they gave out Ikea bucket hats, and there [were] a lot of people just walking around with those [hats].. I’m pretty sure they’re showing up again, but we’ll see if the hats will be back.”
According to Naranjo-Robles, being one of the biggest events of Viking Days means it has a powerful community effect.
“There’s so much opportunity for freshmen and transfer students or even just people who have been around but maybe haven’t found a club or some other area to be a part of,” said Naranjo-Robles. “I think it’s really important. It’s impactful to see how active campus really is. If you have classes in one specific building or if you don’t live on campus, that’s a disconnection that often happens. I feel like it helps [make it feel like] ‘Okay, this is a community.’”
For any interested students, the Party in the Park will be held in the South Park blocks on October 2 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
