Dear Future Barkerites:
Welcome to Iowa State and Barker House!
Barker House is part of Lyon Hall in the Old Richardson
Court Association(Old RCA for short). It was
constructed in 1915, and is the oldest residence hall on campus, but it's most
definitely not in bad shape. Barker
House is composed of the first and second floors of Lyon, with the women living
on first and the men on second.
Upstairs is an honors house - Harwood (third and fourth floors).
Collectively, Barker has about 55 people that live
between the two floors, and we strongly advocate the open-door-social
policy. We pride ourselves in our
diverse atmosphere (due to religious, cultural, and age variations), and it is
this atmosphere and our traditions that contribute to Barker having the second
highest resident return rate on the entire ISU campus from year to year.
The word “tradition” is extremely important to all
Barkerites, simply because we have MANY of them. We eat at dining service as a
house for lunch and dinner. Generally
we gather in the stairwell by room 111 and go together (11am and noon for lunch, 5pm
for dinner), and proceed to “our tables” at Oak-Elm. Also, on Sunday nights, a group of us usually go out together, as
dining service is not open for the evening meal.
We also do Big Siblings/Little Siblings. Shortly after you arrive, you will have the
chance to be paired with a Barker returnee of the opposite sex in order to help
you become more familiar with Barker.
Our House Meetings have one of the highest rates of
attendance of any house at Iowa State because we strive to make our meetings
fun. Within our house meetings we have
a couple more traditions. It is here
you will learn about the Quote Award, the Bloopers and Redemptions, and the
Nice Awards.
Twice a year (during Homecoming and VEISHEA) we put on
our longest standing tradition, the Barker Lawn Chair Brigade. If you've ever seen a VEISHEA parade, then
you'll know what this is. Basically we
do what a rifle team does (modified a bit), only with lawn chairs. This has a rich history, and it started
during Vietnam when Barker (all female at the time) protested the war by doing
the traditional rifle drills with the chair.
We've added little elements to make it more fun than a rifle drill, though!
Varieties have been going on since the mid 50’s, and
Barker has had a part in it for six of the last seven years. We write our own script and songs (well,
mainly just rewrite lyrics to other songs); we build our own set. It's quite a bit of work, but it's tons of
fun. Barker is the ONLY residence hall
that participates in this - the rest are Greek houses. Two years ago we did a spin-off of a Scooby Doo
mystery, complete with tuition hikes and mysterious buildings appearing on
campus, and featuring the Board of Regents as pirates. While we didn’t win the grand prize, we did
receive the “Best Set” award.
As far as Intramural Sports are concerned, Barker is
awesome. We constantly have good
turnouts for just about any sport offered, but we tend to excel in
volleyball and all divisions of broomball.
If you don't know what Broomball is, think hockey without the skates,
coordination, and puck- just a mini soccer ball. We also encourage spectators at games, and have several
Barker-Exclusive cheers for our Broomball and Hockey games! Fans are always nice, and many people will
stay up to go cheer for those 1:30 am games!
Right away in the fall we have Football, Soccer, and Ultimate Frisbee -
so bring your cleats!
There are numerous other traditions, including
Kaleidoquiz, Secret Santa, Tuesday Night Pokey Stick™ Night, Harwood-Barker
football, and more that you will learn about once you get here. Hopefully this was a small taste of what's
to come! If you’re interested, feel
free to browse the rest of the website by using the navigation frame on the
left. Feel free to e-mail or IM any of
us with any questions you may have.
We’re really looking forward to meeting all of you on move-in day!
Sincerely,
Betsy Thompson Heather Reid Amanda Haubrich
Barker House President
Barker House Vice President
Barker House RA
Room 121
Room 121
bjthomp@iastate.edu
hlreid@iastate.edu
noel@iastate.edu
AIM: PippiLongstock00
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