If you were to go onto the sixth floor at the Marriot Hotel in Springfield, Mass. last Saturday night, you would have heard college students chanting “R-O-C-K YOU ROCK, YOU ROCK, R-O-C-K YOU ROCK, YOU ROCK,” followed by a single voice calling out “L-O-V-E LOVE YOU, LOVE YOU. L-O-V-E LOVE YOU, LOVE YOU.”

The Northeast Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls (NEACURH) Minis Conference was hosted by Western New England University this past weekend.

Student delegates came from across the North Eastern region, including the Pace NYC campus, New York University, and the University of Buffalo. While the programs and boardroom discussions were run on the college campus, the award ceremony and dance was hosted at the hotel.

Outside of the event room, students mingled and took pictures with one another. The sparkling chandelier hanging from the middle of the space gave the room a feeling of importance. Inside of the room, a stage was set up in the center with a dance floor in front of it. Divided by the dance space, circular tables with pale, white tablecloths were placed around the room and delegates and advisors alike steadily filled the empty seats.

Students were dressed to impress and the Pace Pleasantville delegates were no different. Wearing variations of red and black, the Pleasantville delegates were split into two tables, both next to the stage.

Megan Brown, a sophomore and the National Communications Coordinator (NCC) for the Pleasantville campus was on the edge of her seat during the whole ceremony.

“I was seeing some of my friends give speeches and I was so proud of them,” she said.

Brown had attended the conference for the first time last year as a freshman and was immediately hooked.

“It was more relaxed this year because I knew what was going on,” Brown said. “When I went to my first conference, I had no clue about any of the cheers and felt lost most of the time.”

Cheers made up a surprisingly large amount of the awards portion of the ceremony. If you were new to the program, some of these came as a surprise.

“They were very reminiscent of middle school cheer camp,” sophomore Jessica Matalevich, one of the delegates and a first time attendee of the conference, said. “Sometimes, you had to stand, put your arms together above your head like the shape of an ‘O,’ and loudly say ‘Ohhhhhh.’”

In addition to the literal standing ovation, there was the use of the conference clap.

Marty the moose, the NEACURH mascot, would start the clap off with jazz hands by the ears followed by one, loud clap.

“The dinner was the best part of the ceremony. The awards went on for about two hours after we finished eating so it felt really long,” Matalevich said. “It would have been more enjoyable if they had started the awards while serving dessert.”

The award ceremony ended at 10:00 p.m. and, within an hour, the dance portion of the night began.

The tables had been cleared, lights turned off, and the Western New England University’s radio station had begun DJing the event. Reminiscing of school dances from 2008, delegates relaxed and danced to music like “Low” by Flo Rida and “Fire Burning” by Sean Kingston.

As the night went on, the students slowly began to file out of the dance room and back to their rooms, giggling and taking pictures as they went, eventually leaving the sixth floor empty of any NEACURH participants.