Hit the Bricks
One of our campus’ most beloved traditions is called Hit the Bricks, which is a day-long relay race where students, faculty, and staff run laps around the Quad all day and raise funds and awareness for cancer research in honor of our alumnus Brian Piccolo (as seen in the movie Brian’s Song). I am thrilled to report that Hit the Bricks will still happen this year, though by necessity it will look a little different:
The 17th annual Hit the Bricks for the Brian Piccolo Cancer Research Drive is scheduled for Monday, September 28th through Thursday, October 1st. This varies from the traditional one-day relay race around the upper quad, and due to COVID-19 guidelines, we will instead host an extended week of safe and socially distant events.
You can see the schedule for Hit the Bricks this year. Families, please urge your students to form a team and join in the fun. Especially for our P’24s, remind your students that they can put a sign up sheet on their hall, text or groupme their hallmates or classmates, etc. to round up a team, or they can join as an individual. But it might be really good for them to stretch their social skills and meet some new people by seeking other students to join a team.
There are some unexpected benefits to the new Hit the Bricks format: since the running/walking is spread out over several days, we won’t run into a situation where it is raining or beastly hot (I’ve done the beastly hot HTB and can assure you it is Not Good). This format is also great for our students who are not on campus this year – you can participate too, either alone or in a group with other students studying remotely. So whether you are in China, Italy, Australia, Brazil, or Tahiti (I wish), you can still be part of the activity.
No major COVID updates for you today. You can continue to see the dashboard online.
Finally, campus received some sad news today of the death of one of the members of our Parking and Transportation staff. Your students may have known him, as he was a shuttle driver. We extend our sympathy to his family and all who knew him.
Any time we have a death within our campus community, people naturally have questions. Out of respect for the family of the deceased and in keeping with medical privacy laws, the University will not disclose the cause of death without the permission of the family, as outlined in our Family Communications Guidelines and Philosophy.