“It’s just like a staple here on the UConn campus. I walk by it every single day,” UConn junior Tyler Sheehy said.
UConn’s spirit rock is one of three rocks located throughout the school’s campus. For generations, students have been allowed to paint them with various messages, within the confines of certain rules.
“It’s always something new. It’s always new information. Usually it correlates with what’s going on in the world,” sophomore Nawaf Rushaidat said.
Sometimes the messaging is lighthearted, from Greek life functions to celebrating a national championship. Other times, student groups use it to make a statement.
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“It's a free speech kind of thing,” senior Mariel Beebe said.
This fall though, certain messaging regarding the Israel-Hamas War led the university to reconsider the future of the tradition.
“People have been painting the rock Israeli/Palestinian colors. People have been painting over the rock, and I think that’s what has been causing a lot of controversy,” sophomore Alex Schletter said.
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A spokesperson for UConn verified emails, first obtained by The Daily Campus, that were sent from university administrators back in October.
The emails said, in part:
“With everything going on between Israel and Hamas…it would be in the university’s best interest to remove the rock entirely as we do not want to initiate any further tension amongst the UConn community."
“If it’s about controversial things being written on the rock, I don’t know if moving the rock will stop that, but maybe,” Schletter said.
In the emails, other university leaders suggested moving the rock to a less visible location.
Ultimately, however, UConn decided against any move.
“While the rock being painted different colors can arouse certain feelings within people, I think that everyone still has the right to put whatever they want on the rock and give people things to talk about,” Schletter said.
