The participants of Dance Floor Theory have turned some heads
across the Baldwin Wallace University campus with their “spatulas have more fun” t-shirts. With over 40 students participants this year, the spatulas have caught the attention of the BW community.
Dance Floor Theory is a four hour leadership seminar put on by Leaders Striving for Success (LSFS), the same group responsible for programs like the Emerging Leaders Retreat and the Distinguished Leader’s Conference.
Sunday, Feb. 17 marked the second appearance of Dance Floor Theory at BW.
Junior Nicole Venen, Communications Chair of Leaders Striving for Success, described the program as being more than just a leadership seminar.
“It’s really about creating connections with people you might not generally get a chance to,” Venen said.
The program is designed to be a fun, interactive way to help students find a new perspective of leadership that offers a way to think of solutions for problems. Participants identify themselves with a number that describes their level of engagement in an organization with “5” being the most active and “neutral” being least involved.
Venen explained that the goal is to find the neutral members and help them become more engaged. This is where the spatulas come in.
“If you’re looking at it as though it’s a dance floor, the neutrals are the people that are standing on the sides, and the 5’s are the ones dancing in the middle,” Venen said.
“What we want is to scoop the neutrals off the side and bring them to the middle, much like a spatula.”
Throughout the day, participants play games to help promote total focus, as well as brainstorm ideas for “blender activities,” those that will get the neutrals more involved.
“One of the ideas we came up with was a huge hopscotch board all across campus that anyone could play,” Venen said.
This year, they also created their own Harlem Shake video that can be found on YouTube under the bwstudentlife channel. The video is the kick-start to BW’s “Free Hugs” campaign, which was also utilized last year in a campus-wide event.
“Free Hugs” is a national campaign that fosters community and positive thinking by promoting simple, kind gestures (like a hug), and offering them to strangers. Last year during the “Free Hugs” campaign students stood in the Strosacker Hall lobby with signs offering free hugs to anyone who needed one. It offered a pay-it-forward effect that caused the campaign to spread throughout all of the campus community, even those not directly involved in Dance Floor Theory or LSFS.
Dance Floor Theory will return next year, and the Baldwin Wallace community will see even more of the “Spatulas have more fun” tshirts.