This October, Carleton will be reviving several Halloween-inspired traditions which have fallen by the wayside over the past few years. On Thursday, October 31, offices across Carleton’s campus will collaborate to host a community-wide trick-or-treating event. All students are encouraged to participate, and costumes are not required.

Trick-or-treating will commence at 9 a.m. and will last until 3 p.m. A comprehensive list of participating offices and their locations was sent to students over email on October 9.

“I was on staff at least one previous year when trick-or-treating happened,” said Allie Lyman, Academic Records Coordinator. “You could tell there were some students hopping from office to office collecting a lot of candy, while others would drop in on their way to class just because they knew candy was here and they were welcome to take a piece. We’re an office that takes in a lot of forms from students, so it was a nice change to have students drop by for candy instead of to submit a form.”

Considering the pervasiveness of stress culture at Carleton, trick-or-treating likely comes as a much-needed reminder of the importance of wholesome play.

Academic Program Coordinator and member of the trick-or-treating special events committee Erin Arnston, who graduated from Carleton last year, says she “remembered it being really fun, because you could explore offices you’d never gone to or had any reason to go to before. It seems a little weird to just walk into random offices as a student, but this is a way to invite students in and give them a reason to visit and know what staff do at Carleton.”

According to Lyman, trick-or-treating was not purposefully discontinued. “We don’t keep a tally of how many students participate, so I would guess that we just didn’t realize how popular it was across campus. We heard from some past participating offices that they missed it, so we brought it back,” she explained.

In addition to reintroducing trick-or-treating, Carleton will also be hosting a competition among staff, faculty and administrators for the best-decorated office. Award categories include spookiest, most committed, and people’s choice, noted Arnston.

Peer Leader Eve Chesivoir is currently working on decorating Henry House, the Disability Services office. “I don’t want to give away anything, but it’s going to be very fun, cute, and spooky!” said Chesivoir. “The Peer Leaders are working hard on decorations and we really hope everyone will enjoy them!”

All Carleton students are encouraged to participate in trick-or-treating, during which they can judge the quality of various offices’ decorating skills themselves.