Desks, courtside seats prompt curious behavior

The week has been a strange one on the VCU campus.

Radiant golden school desks have suddenly appeared at locations both conspicuous and obscure, squatting in the midst of the university’s daily commotion for no apparent reason, looking wildly out of the place. The desks bear enigmatic black markings, which read “#vcudesk.” As if that wasn’t enough of a puzzle, students have seemed helplessly drawn to them, as if bewitched. The students drop into them, strike goofy poses and snap photos of themselves. These “selfies” have even begun to appear on the World Wide Web.

Fortunately, the mystery has been solved.

The desks – there are 10 of them – are part of a determined effort to give away two free courtside tickets to the final home game of the VCU men’s basketball team, scheduled for March 8 at 7 p.m. against the Bonnies of St. Bonaventure. The effort is tied to the university’s “Make it real” marketing campaign, which showcases the many ways that VCU and its students, alumni, faculty and staff are engaged in modern life. The desks and their wide-ranging placements are visual motifs for VCU’s insistence that learning, research, creativity, service and discovery – the hallmarks of the VCU experience – happen everywhere, not just in the classroom.

Each member of the VCU community who snaps a selfie in one of the desks and posts it with the hashtag “#vcudesk” on a social media network, particularly Twitter or Instagram, is eligible to win the tickets. Students are entered every time they snap a selfie at a different desk, giving them a possible 10 chances to win the coveted tickets. Not all 10 are so easy to find, though.

No wonder otherwise levelheaded students, faculty and staff have been scavenging around campus in search of the desks. Creativity is not a requirement, but some students and others have treated the desks as blank canvases, taking the opportunity to showcase their personality, interests and skills in the photos. That sort of treatment jibes with “Make it real” and its celebration of the university’s diverse assets, as well as its goal to give those in the university community a chance to share the ways that they bring their knowledge and talents into the world.

VCU dance student Michelle Purdy, for instance, has posted photos of herself sprawled in the desks in the kind of contorted poses dancers must be able to muster in performance.

Students have posted both individual portraits and group shots with their cohorts. Some of them have included their pet dogs. Jerid Prater, for instance, has appeared in several desks alongside his little dog Maple Syrup.

One mystery person placed an apple on a desk in the Compass. A passerby later grabbed it and took a bite before putting it back.

One alumnus engaged in an online game of “hot and cold” with @VCU on Twitter to hunt down a desk.

Such is the power of the desk that one student took a selfie in a desk despite being “cold, sick and sleepy.”

The university’s loose reins on the desks and the ways that students engage with them led one fraternity – Sigma Phi Epsilon – to take a desk on a trip, which appears to be sanctioned. The desk’s tour can be followed on the fraternity’s Instagram page – http://statigr.am/sigepvcu – or Twitter account – @VCUSigEp. It was at a corn hole game on Monument Avenue earlier today.

One desk is expected to surface at “Shakaville,” the collection of tents that will be erected outside of the Siegel Center on Friday by students eager to secure tickets to Saturday’s home game between VCU and St. Louis. Whoever lucks into the St. Bonaventure courtside tickets won’t have to worry about a line next week.

The “#vcudesk” contest will close at midnight at the end of Friday.

Maybe then campus can return to normal.

Visit VCU’s Storify page to see more selfies with desks – http://storify.com/VCU. Or visit the “Selfie with the Desk” social media contest site – http://www.makeitreal.vcu.edu/contest.html.

 

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