With a fresh coat of snow on the ground and the crisp winter air hugging the faces of students making their way to class, the spring semester at EIU is in full swing.
Starting off the 2025 spring semester with a bang, the University Board hosted its annual EIU Winter Welcome Dayz from Jan. 13 through Jan. 16.
Every year at the start of each semester, the University Board hosts events throughout the first week to welcome both returning and new students to campus.
Preparation for the event started back in November of 2024 after a poll was posted on the University Board’s Instagram story, said senior political science major Madison Veatch.
“I thought about doing a trivia night and students really wanted bingo,” Veatch said. “I know we do bingo kind of a lot from University Board, but I kind of just wanted to do what students like.”
The University Board’s overall goal for the Winter Welcome Dayz as well as all welcome weeks is to give the students something to look forward to during the first week, Veatch said.
Jyoti Lama, master’s student in the clinical psychology program, believes the Winter Welcome Dayz are beneficial to students because not everyone is a returning student.

“For a lot of students this semester might be a beginning as well, even though fall is when most students come but students also come in the spring so I think it would be nice for them to get started with the college experience with something fun as well,” said Lama
For this year’s Winter Welcome Dayz, the University Board put on two small scale events and two larger scale events.
Jan. 13 started off with a rush hour of sweets held in the Bridge Lounge of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union from 11 to 1 p.m. where students were able to grab hot chocolates, lollipops, cookies and free T-shirts while participating in different giveaways.
According to Veatch, there was steady traffic and a decent turnout for the first event.
On Jan. 14, students could experience the same event a second time with the addition of making a craft or taking one with them if they were in a rush. Light refreshments were also provided like coffee, hot chocolate and brownies.
The turn out for this event was about the same with good traffic overall, Lama said.
The biggest events for the week were Winter Arts and Craft Night and the Winter Mystery Bingo held Jan. 15 and 16 respectively.
Arts and crafts night was full of activities for students to participate in on top of a multitude of crafts to choose from.
There were DIY snow globes, sand art, word art, tote bags, photo frames, flags and pennants students could make.
Activities included a caricature artist, henna artist, glitter tattoos, face painting, an airbrush artist, stuff-a-plush station, photo booth station, Winter Welcome Dayz T-shirt giveaways and a social media giveaway.
A hot chocolate bar and cake pops were also present at the event.
Since this was one of the larger events it had a much greater turnout, said Veatch.
“We did a bunch of different makes and take with a bunch of different like stations throughout the University Ballroom and the Bridge Lounge, and there were people everywhere almost the whole event,” she said
The final event of the week was bingo, which added a twist to the game.
The gameplay was like any other bingo game with different variations being used throughout the night, but the mystery aspect came with the prizes.
Winners would pull a slip of paper from a box and the number caller would read off their prize which ranged from something as small as a Squishmallow or a $10 Amazon gift card or something as large as a TV or a scooter.

When multiple people got bingo at the same time, they would play rock paper scissors for the prize with the winner being chosen by the audience’s applause.
The energy inside the Grand Ballroom was electric, as everyone was glued to their card hoping for a bingo.
Mystery Bingo Nigh was a great way to end the week, said one of the winners– senior Stefany Roberts, a double major in criminal justice and psychology.
“We come out for every bingo night. I mean it’s just the environment,” she said. “We’re all having a good time, and you see everybody.”
Her favorite part of the night wasn’t winning her prize but rather seeing everyone get mad about who won bingo, she said.
Junior criminal justice major Miracle Langston said Welcome Weeks mean a lot to students and University Board alike because they’re trying to give back to the students and provide space to have fun.
“My first Welcome Week was last spring,” she said. “I liked it, it gave me like so much to do within my first week. You’re always busy, you’re always doing something and you meet a lot of new people.”
Alexis Moore-Jones can be reached at 581-2812 or at admoorejones@eiu.edu.