This past weekend was the first Palaver of Spring 2015, and it was a blast. Nick Lyon, a student my year and one of my best friends since freshman year, took charge of organizing the event and did a great job. He reserved the rotunda in the Student Union Building, got the event catered by Dining and Conference Services, and even went through the trouble of setting up a “blind date with a book” for each attendee; every attendee got a brown paper wrapped book with two or three bullet points describing the book at their table spot to take home after the palaver! 
The book I ended up with! (It ended up being Pride & Prejudice)
Good friends and good books!
Attendance was great; the head of the Humanities department and program, Prof. George Erving, was there along with our honored guest, Dean Mike Segawa! There were five student given presentations with topics ranging from queer culture in the media to the concept of cyclical time.
To kick things off, everyone grabbed some of the delicious dinner provided by DCS and settled in. Prof Erving gave a brief introduction speech thanking everyone for attending, and then Kristen Kerbavaz’15 kicked off the presentations with “The Entire History of Spain in 15-ish minutes.”
The lovely dinner spread!
Prof Erving introducing the palaver plan
Kristen’s presentation!
The presentations were all super interesting. Chris Kiley’18 talked about queer culture in the media, Kathryn Stutz’17 presented on archaeology and anthropology, Elena Becker’17 discussed the problem of shark finning, and Rachel Anderson’17 finished up with a fascinating discussion of cyclical time.
As things winded down and started to wrap up, I caught some very cute moments between seniors, professors, and the youngsters.
Kabir Jensen’15 and Kristen Kerbavas’15, this year’s two seniors who have been in the Humanities Program since their freshman year, with Prof Erving. So sweet!
The seniors huggin’ it out
Nick Lyon’16 and myself pose with Nicole Renna’15, our freshman year RA. Memories!
A picture with all the presenters!
Chris Kiley and Nicole share a moment with their new books
The men in charge! Nick Lyon and Prof Erving, those responsible for the awesome event!
Then, we got the group together and took some group pictures!
What a bunch of smarty pants
Finally, my suitemates and I headed home to celebrate Kabir’s birthday (which conveniently was the same day) with cake made by his lovely girlfriend, Lauren Hsieh’15!
Birthday boy blowing out his candle!
The cutest couple + cake
It was a wonderful night. The future of the Hum Program is bright!