The sounds of chatter, utensils clanking, and laughter ring through the dining hall as students enjoy a break from class with some lunch. Tables are at maximum capacity, and some students share chairs with friends. Everyone expects this to be a normal and uneventful part of the day until a soft-serve ice cream cone falls from the balcony above and smacks onto the table.
“Skyconing,” as it is called at Hillsdale, is just what it sounds like: students take ice cream cones from the dining hall, walk up to the balcony in the student union, and drop the ice cream onto a table below. There have been many controversies about skyconing and whether it should be stopped, but because of its history, some students think it should be preserved.
Junior Max Cote learned about the history of skyconing from his older siblings who attended Hillsdale while Cote was still at Hillsdale Academy. He said Hillsdale culture would not be the same without skyconing.
“I first heard about it like 10 years ago,” Cote said. “It’s been here for a while. My older brother started college here in 2015, and I remember him telling me stories about it, and when I was in middle school, I thought that it sounded so funny.”
Cote emphasized the importance of skyconing friends for fun, not to get back at someone you’re mad at or to target an unknowing suspect. Sophomore Charlie Taylor said the tradition of skyconing is a fun way for students to resolve disagreements in a lighthearted manner.
“I think skyconing is kind of an essential part of Hillsdale’s culture,” Taylor said. “I think it’s completely harmless.”
Both Cote and Taylor said that while the act of skyconing can be fun and harmless, students need to take ownership of the mess.
“I think it’s been a long-standing tradition that if you get skyconed, you clean it up,” Cote said. “The whole point is for the dining hall workers not to have to clean up unnecessary messes, and it’s not hard to throw some napkins on the cone and clean it up.”
Senior Jonathan Williams understands the culture of skyconing and the potential for fun that it can have, but he said he sees some problems with it fostering tension between dorms or friend groups.
“I think there is important history to it, and it’s just a matter of it being done in the right way,” Williams said. “If it’s being done to friends, and you can show that it’s you doing it to your friend, and it’s a little joke, that’s good. But there is something to the culture of dropping it on a rival dorm or a rival fraternity and then just fleeing the scene that’’s a little bit problematic to campus and creates tension.”
Williams said that rivalries on campus have been one of his favorite aspects of Hillsdale culture, and as Simpson ResidenceResidence head resident assistant, he knows that rivalries build culture if done the right way.
“Done the right way, I think skyconing and other pranks can actually build the rivalry and build the dorm culture, but also build unity among campus if it’s done out of love and respect and friendship and trying to create this rivalry in the spirit of building up both camps,” Williams said. “It’s when the rivalry and pranking come out of true malicious intent, true hatred, or trying to make another dorm into something lesser or inferior, that divides and isn’t a healthy campus culture.”
All three men said they think the history behind skyconing warrants the preservation of this prank.
“I think it’s something that we should preserve,” Cote said.
Williams emphasized the importance of students signing the honor code and promising to self-govern, and if students choose to participate in skyconing, they must be willing to face the consequences and take ownership of their actions.
“I think that my advice would be don’t drop sky cones on faculty, don’t do it to people that you don’t know,” Williams said. “Make sure that it’s all in good fun and the people you are going to drop an ice cream cone on know you and will receive it in good fun.”
Save Tradition: Skycone your friends
