Events & Traditions

Slivka has the most events of any residential college on campus, and as a resident or non-res, you are welcome to come to all of them! Ranging from annual, campus-wide events like Dance Marathon to daily and weekly events such as firesides and munchies, Slivka has many exciting opportunities for its members to stay engaged in the community!

Annual Traditions

Over the years, Slivka has developed many fun traditions that have become part of Slivkan culture.

Slivka Formal

Every year, many Slivkans gather to dance the night away in the Slivka Formal. This event is sometimes joined by other RCs. It’s a night of fun away from the dorm, where everybody has a chance to dress up right and eat good food and dance until they drop. Previous venues include the N9NE Steakhouse in Chicago and the Arlington Heights Ballroom. This year’s is sure to be just as much fun!

Harry’s Black Market Auction

Harry’s Black Market Auction is a yearly event held in Slivka to raise money for the Slivka Dance Marathon Team. It has become legendary in the Slivka community as a night of fun and entertainment, where Slivkans show off their hidden talents, and prove what a diverse and highly talented group of people live in this building. Individuals or groups will band together to perform skits, sing songs, play instruments, or view hilarious (and often hilariously embarrassing) videos of Slivkans. These brave souls then auction off services to the dorm, ranging from doing someone’s laundry, to making a delicious meal, to dying your hair purple (thanks to Ryan Brock for starting that tradition). It is an evening full of laughter and philanthropy, and one of Slivka’s most popular and highly attended events every year.

Dance Marathon

Now in its 40th year, Northwestern University Dance Marathon (NUDM) is one of the largest student-run philanthropies in the nation. Since it was founded in 1975, Northwestern students have raised more than $14.3 million for more than thirty different beneficiaries. Occurring in early March, DM is a weekend of philanthropy, where over 1000 NU students come together and raise money for a worthy cause, which changes every year. This past year, DM raised a record-breaking $1,385,273 for Team Joseph, which works to spread awareness and find a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. This past year, Slivka raised $17,831.73 and sent a record-breaking 39 dancers to DM. After 2 quarters of fundraising, we spend 30 hours dancing together, and raising money for a great cause.

Field Day

RCB Field Day is a day where all of the Res Colleges compete against each other in a number of events. These events include such challenges as a pie eating contest, human foosball (it is what it sounds like), tug of war, and the Master’s Mile. The Master’s Mile is a race in which each RC pushes one member of its College Staff around the lakefill in a shopping cart. Yep. To sum up RCB Field Day, Slivka wins everything (the trophies in the Rec Lounge are a testament). We have even won the spirit category, traditionally won by smaller RC’s, by wearing capes and protecting our President with a turtle shell of coordinated foam core shields. We went all 300 on everyone else, and it was glorious.

Life as a Slivkan

In addition to its larger events, Slivka holds the most weekly events out of all the RCs. With 6 committees each holding their own unique events, we never have a day without something exciting going on. These events range from firesides to munchies to perler beads, and much more!

Firesides

About two to three times per week, Slivka holds firesides, in which Northwestern faculty and students speak about their work or other interests in a casual, rec-lounge setting. Many of the firesides that Slivka holds are academic, in which we invite faculty from all fields of Northwestern’s academia to speak about their current work, topics that interest them, or whatever they want. These topics vary from extraterrestrial life (pictured) to the material science of art to how tracking dollar bills allowed researchers to predict the spread of H1N1. Additionally, Slivka holds many non-academic firesides, often hosted by students, on topics ranging from Matlab tutorials to Super Smash Brothers tips. The best part about firesides is that if you have a topic that interests you, you can give a fireside on it!

Perler Beads (and other IT events)

IT Committee is a committee unique to Slivka. While most RCs have their IT Chair manage the technology of the dorm, Slivka\’s IT Chair has a committee that plans many social events, in addition to their other technological duties. These events, also unique to Slivka, typically consist of topics and ideas that do not fit in to any other committee. IT events have ranged from Super Smash Brothers Tournaments to making foam swords to baking bread to building newspaper bridges to Capture the Hiding and Seeking Cops and Flag Robbers (yes, it’s a mix of all those games). Over the past few years, one increasingly popular event in IT committee is perler beads. Slivkans come and make cute trinkets out of little plastic beads that melt together. IT events like perler beads are one of the many aspects of Slivka that make our RC so unique.

Munchies and Barbecues

Each week, social committee holds munchies, which is one of the most popular events at Slivka. During munchies, Slivkans get to socialize with each other and hang out in the rec lounge while enjoying delicious food prepared by social committee! Munchies have ranged from chocolate covered fruit to walking tacos to BLT sandwiches. When it’s nice outside, we often have barbecues instead of normal munchies. Whether you come for the food or just to hang out, munchies is a great time to mingle with other Slivkans.

Brunches

One of philanthropy committee’s most common and popular events is brunches. Brunches are used as fundraisers for Dance Marathon and Relay for Life, which are two of Northwestern’s largest philanthropic events. In the weeks leading up to these events, Slivka’s philanthropy committee plans brunches for most Sundays in the rec lounge. We watch cartoons and enjoy a delicious brunch prepared by members of the philanthropy committee.

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