Despite initial plans to reinvent its end-of-October 3K race, Campus Rec isn’t having clowns chase runners at this year’s Zombie Run.
Although the group considered changing the name to the Halloween Run in order to include more characters than zombies, like clowns, it rejected the idea because of concerns over them being seen as actual threats, Campus Rec Co-Director senior Matt Vanisacker said.
“We were drawing the line of being funny or serious with it,” Vanisacker said. “The fact that there have been clown sightings on campus meant that we didn’t have a specific way to control ‘Is this a Campus Rec clown, or is this a high schooler from the community?’ It was a close judgement call, but we’re going to stick with zombies.”
Earlier this month, clown sightings on Hillsdale’s campus led to multiple reports to the security office, after several clown-related incidents occurred in more than a dozen states in the U.S.
Instead of changing the name of the run, Campus Rec opted to change its starting time. After listening to students’ responses to last year’s Zombie Run, it moved the start time from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., 12 minutes after sunset, Vanisacker said.
“We talked to people last year after the run, and they were like, ‘This is awesome, but it would be even more awesome if it were at night,’” Vanisacker said. “It really gives people the true effect. I think it will be a cool atmosphere. You may get some natural fog or something. We’ll see.”
The event will take place Saturday at 7 p.m. at Hayden Park.
