UIC officially opens 1st-ever E-ntramurals; trends on Twitter
Melissa Bianca Operario
Highlighting the spirit of resiliency and the essence of challenging limits, the University of the Immaculate Conception (UIC), through the initiative of the University Student Government (USG), officially began the first-ever virtual intramural league on November 6, 2020 via Zoom and a livestream on the USG’s Facebook page.
Aligning the theme with the current health crisis, “Transformative Ignacian Marian Education: Rising above the challenge to stay proactive amidst the pandemic through friendly competition in the different academic, cultural, and eSports activities”, the week-long event opened with the crowd all hyped up as cheers of pride and excitement of students and faculty filled the live streaming.
In his opening remarks, the Bachelor of Physical Education, Culture, and Arts/Sports Coordinator, Professor Rene Babiera II regarded this annual sports league as an highly anticipated school affair in any higher education institution and marked this year’s conduct as one of the most important milestones in the history of the university as it is pursued with an innovative idea of bringing all sports and academic activities virtually.
He also stressed the measures that have been adopted that underscore the institution’s action to stay relevant, and shared the framework that will ground everyone’s expectations on the conduct of the E-ntramurals.
“We replaced [letter] I with E which stands for electronics. Literally, we’ll be witnessing all events conducted online. It will not entail too much expenses from our students so we wanted them to be self-sufficient using only their creativity and banking on their skills in all the competitions that we introduced. Most of our competitions will also be in the form of video submission, so we crafted guidelines that will ensure fairness, as well as safety of our students following the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) protocols,” he asserted.
After Mr. Babiera officially declared the event open, this was succeeded by the students’ oath of sportsmanship led by UIC Dance Sports Varsity Team Captain, Samantha Lutche and the announcement of reminders given by Director of Student Affairs, Mrs. Anaflor Sacopayo.
Unlike previous opening ceremonies which normally include cluster parades and cheer dances, the virtual arena became a sea of colors after the quick glance of different competition entries as noises were converted to colored hearts which represent the four clusters.
The absence of face-to-face interaction did not restrain the UIC community as cheers and noises of excitement reached various social media platforms. The cheers turned to roars as the tag #UICeNTRAMURALS20 went number one trending on Twitter, reaching more than 3,300 tweets just hours after the streaming went live.