By Erika Norton
With March comes basketball madness, but at Taylor, there is Hall Madness.
Hall Madness is a new tournament-style competition among the residence halls at Taylor, in which the hall that receives the most "likes" for their hall on the Taylor Facebook page wins.
Similar to the NCAA basketball tournament, it is set up in a bracket with three rounds, starting with the Elite Eight, moving to the Final Four, and then to the championship round.
The main goal of the competition is to get students, parents and alumni engaged online and to get them excited about Taylor, according to Ben Wehling, Director of Communications and Marketing at Taylor.
"There's a lot of enthusiasm we find from events that center around Residence Life. Plus, competition is always fun," Wehling said.
The grand prize is the wood-carved statue of William Bishop Taylor, or "The Bish" as Wehling called it, which stands in the upper level of Helena Hall. It will be moved to the winning residence hall."We would like the Bishop statue to become something people are interested in so his story is told," said Steve Mortland, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing at Taylor.
Mortland and Wehling would also like to see this competition continue as an annual tradition, passing the statue around from hall to hall. "Next year, the contest might be the highest GPA average or it might be a green initiative," Mortland said.
The competition started Monday with some minor complaints and concerns, the largest being the immediate perception that smaller residence halls won't be able to win against a larger hall.
[caption id="attachment_2843" align="alignright" width="409"]
A view of what Taylor's Hall Madness bracket looks like on their facebook page.[/caption]
Wehling explained that this isn't true because members or alums of a hall can vote for any hall after theirs is eliminated.
"If there is a competition between Sammy and Wengatz, everybody in Wengatz can vote for the hall up against Sammy," Wehling said.
A few comments were made on the Taylor Facebook page about the possible unfairness of the competition.
"It's very light-hearted and just meant to be fun," Mortland said. "We don't want to be pitting halls against halls in terms of 'I'm better than you,' but we do want you to celebrate that (your) hall experience means something to you. It's something that's of value."
Since the competition started Monday, there are more than 1,000 new fans on the Taylor Facebook page, according to Mortland. There were 206 new fans of the page, and the halls had 900 likes among them after the first day, according to Wehling.
Overall, the Taylor Facebook page is one of the most engaging Facebook pages among all higher education institutions in the entire country, according to Wehling. It currently ranks in the top 5 nationwide for 2013 Fan Growth and was ranked 10th in the nation for Page Engagement in 2012.
With the help of the Hall Madness competition, Mortland said they hope to reach their goal of 10,000 likes on the Taylor page.
Overall, the competition has been pretty close. Among all eight residence halls, Wengatz was one of the top seeds because of its large size, said Mortland."I think it's a good way for students and alumni to get involved on the Taylor Facebook page," said Taylor marketing social media intern and senior Erin Guarneri. "It's also just a fun thing we can relate to the basketball tournament, since obviously that's a big deal too."
The eight halls will be narrowed down to the four competing next week. The week after will be the championship round, and the winner will be announced Friday, April 5.
