The Residence Hall Association will be hosting their annual Residents on Campus festival starting Monday.

ROC Fest is a weeklong competition between all the residence halls on campus.

The event begins Monday and will continue through Thursday. It was created as a friendly competition among Eastern residents and as a way to promote more interaction with them.

Each year, ROCFest incorporates a different theme to their events during the weeklong competition; this year’s theme is a throwback to the ‘90s, which is when many of the current attending students were children.

Destiny Collins, the RHA representative for Pemberton Hall, said RHA hopes to have a good turnout for this year’s ROC Fest.

“ROC Fest is an opportunity for residents on campus to come out and participate in the events planned in hopes of meeting new people and creating a stronger community here on campus,” Collins said. “The bigger the turn out, the better this goal can be accomplished, and this is what RHA hope for.”

ROCFest is also a way to promote hall spirit between the different residence halls; each day will have a different event for students to participate in for their residence halls.

The competition starts off with “BOO-YAH Bingo,” at 7 p.m. Monday in the University Ballroom at the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

The second event is “Radical Roller Skating,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Silver Star Skate Center in Mattoon.

There will be bus transportation provided to the skate center behind Stevenson Hall.

To participate in the events, students must live in the residence halls. Since this is a competition among the residence halls, there will be a prize awarded to the winning residence hall.

Throughout the week, there will be a search for the panther babies, or small paper cutouts of panthers hidden around campus.

This event will take place through the duration of ROC Fest in the evenings and will have students searching all over Eastern to find panther babies for points. Each panther baby found will be one point.

This year the panthers in the shape of “Rugrats” characters will be worth five points.

The third event is “Funky Fresh Game Night” at 4 p.m. Wednesday in 7th Street Underground.

The final event is the boat relay race at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the campus pond.

At the end of ROC Fest, the winners will receive the ROC Fest trophy for the remsinder of the upcoming year and will have bragging rights among the residence halls.

“Since last year’s theme was ‘Thriller’ and this year’s theme is the ‘90s, I think this ear’s ROC Fest will offer a wider range of ideas and themes for participants to do, which will attract a broader range of people,” Collins said.

ROC Fest was created and designed to promote a friendly competition on campus among the residence halls.

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or lpmartinez@eiu.edu