For their dorm theme, KEC prefects created nature-themed puns.
Before the start of each school year, Choate prefects gather to brainstorm and choose dorm themes: posters placed on each dorm room to specify the inhabiting students’ names. Each year, prefects create even more creative, intriguing, and occasionally strange dorm themes, and the 2017-2018 school year is no exception.
Alan Luo ’18, a prefect in Hill House, was one of many contributors to Hill House’s eclectic theme, which features former United States presidents’ faces photoshopped onto WWE wrestlers. Luo explained, “As prefects, the first thing we wanted to do was make the kids remember Hill House. We wanted students to think of Hill House as kind of weird, and the dorm theme played a large role in that.” While having a medley of Calvin Coolidge and a professional wrestler on your door may seem strange, it was only one of many potential themes brainstormed by the Hill prefects. Luo said, “We had a few other competing, very strange ideas, like various misspellings on Benedict Cumberbatch’s name like ‘barnacle cabbage patch’ and then putting a barnacle on a cabbage patch. Ultimately, however, we decided to use the combination president-WWE wrestler theme.”
Students at the Kohler Environmental Center (KEC) are met with a similarly light-hearted display. “Our dorm theme is nature-themed celebrities,” explained KEC prefect Nicole Yao ’18. “We took celebrities with nature puns in their names, like Danny DeTREEto or Keanu Leaves, and photoshopped pictures on each door for a visual representation of the pun.”
Yao’s room, for instance, features pop-singer Lorde’s face photoshopped onto a gourd, while her dorm-mates are greeted by Megan Fox’s face photoshopped onto a wild fox. The idea was created by Yao’s fellow prefect Mia Rubenstein ’18 as a way to combine the KEC’s environmental mission with humorous and welcoming decor.
Even on main campus, elements of nature are featured prominently in dorm decor. On all the doors in Library, for example, students are greeted by jovial photos of familiar pets. Riley Choi ’18, a prefect in Library, explained, “The other prefects and I were in a group chat talking about choosing a dorm theme. We all agreed we loved animals and decided to narrow it down. Subsequently, I expressed that I loved dogs. Both of them thought it was a great idea.”
Choi said that her theme could best be described as “cute dogs doing funny things.” “We have a bunch of photos of cute dogs wearing fancy costumes or doing human activities,” she explained. “If you look at all the posters on the wall, you can see dogs riding a car, wearing a panda costume, or being a hot dog.”
Nichols House, on the other hand, has a theme more related to human activities: namely, game night. Each floor features a board game including Candy Land, Clue, Scrabble, and Monopoly. These fun decorations seek to unify the dorm. Lauren Dorsey ’18, a prefect in Nichols, explained, “We were thinking about different dorm themes that would help bring our dorm together rather than just being something nice on the walls. We really liked board games because we were actually able to buy the board games and put them in our common room where we have a sign that says ‘game night’. All of the girls in the dorm have access to the games, and they have actually been playing them and bonding.”
Whether they be presidential amalgams or cute dogs, dorm themes are indispensable in establishing the tone and character of a dorm for both prefects and prefectees alike. As Bruna Paiva Oliveira ’18, a prefect in Bernhard House, said, “Dorm themes are a good way to get the kids bonding because they can serve as conversation starters. They get students to identify with the dorm and can be a fun way to bring people together.”
