Cookies, cake pops, apple cider, lemonade, English students and professors littered the Dauphin Humanities Center “fish bowl” lounge for the English department’s first Cookie Slam.
Lexi Mills, an English major, said she put together the Cookie Slam as part of a class project, but the idea was spawned from the Scream Slam earlier this year.
Shippensburg University English chair and professor Shari Horner said the English department hands out cookies to students before finals and has been doing this for the past five years.
“It’s a nice way to get together and socialize,” Horner said.
Heather Ritter, co-editor of The Reflector, said, “This is finals stress relief.”
Professors and students mingled along the top floor, while art students held an art sale on the lower floor in the lounge.
Dean James Mike even made an appearance, grabbing a few cookies and mingling with the students and professors.
“The smell of cookies brought me here,” Mike said with a laugh. “I wanted to see the students and faculty interacting.”
After the cookies were pillaged, the professors and students moved to the right side of the room, making a stage for the poetry reading.
From their own works to poems pulled from books and their phones, students and professors filled the room with tales ranging from cows to heartache.
Ali Laughman started off the reading with a pun, making the room laugh and groan all at once. But then she pulled out her phone and began reading a poem, weaving a story about how badly it hurts to give your all to someone but they leave you anyway.
Mills was next, but after her reading she strongly encouraged others to step up and read their own works. Kyle Gearity, Sarah Markins and Amber J. Pound also shared poems, drawing applauses and even laughter as they walked back to the group.
Finally, the professors read. English professor and Director of First Year Writing Laurie Cella read a poem by another author and English professor Nicole Santalucia read some of her own work.
With the last words spoken, students and professors went their separate ways.
“It was a better turn out than I was expecting,” Mills said. “I love that people are unafraid to read something they wrote.”
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