The IU Indianapolis campus took over the downtown canal Saturday, Sept. 26, for the 18th annual Regatta homecoming event. Students, staff and other community members filled the park and canal walk at 10:30 a.m. as the first of 106 teams took off.
Regatta has been an annual September event for IU Indianapolis, welcoming all interested members of the community. The event hosts the main canoe races, as well as smaller activities such as student musical performances, a dog costume contest, food trucks and booths hosted by different schools and organizations.
This year, the event was spearheaded by the student executive director of the Regatta Steering Committee, Joana Santamaria Vilchis.
"Our previous executive director got a different opportunity, so he had to step down," Santamaria Vilchis said.
She and the other associate executive directors at the time decided she should fill the role. Though her rise to executive director wasn't planned this way, Santamaria Vilchis said she was ready to step up with her previous experiences volunteering for Regatta her first year and serving as coordinator of sponsorship operations her second year. She was also briefly an associate executive director.
When asked about her role, Santamaria Vilchis said, "It's connected me with a lot of great people and taught me how to work with a bunch of different people, whether that's different backgrounds, different beliefs, things like that."
It isn't just a job to her, though. "For me, I think it's about unity," Santamaria Vilchis said. "This is our one big event that I feel like a lot of students feel welcome to, just because there's always something for everyone. Also, the Indianapolis community can come, so I think that inclusion is really important to me."
According to the co-presidents of the Art Education Association at IU, Ellie Bevan and Josie Salinas, Regatta truly is an event of unity and teamwork. The pair ran the arts and culture fair tent at Regatta and said that extensive planning and coordination with other clubs contributed to a successful event.
Two paddlers approach the bridge from the transition point during Regatta in downtown Indianapolis, Sept. 26.
Bevan and Salinas also said Regatta is an important event for club outreach. "I really enjoy being able to meet new people firsthand and getting to tell them about what Herron does. It's good being that positive environment of Herron and making art together," Bevan said.
Salinas said she has experienced clubs struggling and disappearing. "It's sad because clubs really do so much for community building," Salinas said. "Being able to involve other clubs in Regatta, get them exposure, and give them a place to talk to other people and grow stronger as a Herron community, and the campus at large, is really nice to see."
Bevan said the sense of community is what keeps people coming back to this event. Salinas said the core of it all is teamwork. "It's built on teamwork. The main event is, you're making a team of people. Whether it's your school, your club, you're bringing people together of all kinds and building bigger bonds," Salinas said.
Even those not largely involved on campus can feel the community effect. First-time spectator Elizabeth Hutson, a children's health services researcher in the Department of Pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine, came to support her boyfriend's team. He was a member of the Office of the Registrar's Regatta team, RegistrOars.
Hutson hadn't heard of Regatta before this year and said, "Being a part of the School of Medicine, I'm very disconnected from campus. I really don't know what's going on on campus most of the time."
Despite the disconnect, she said "a sense of gathering" is the hallmark of an IU event that greatly affects staff. "One of the things that I love about IU, and working at IU, is the activities and the chance to gather together," Hutson said. "It just gives staff a chance to celebrate, take a little break cause everyone's so busy. I think it's one of the great things about IU."
Joseph Painter, team captain of the School of Dentistry's S.S. Tooth Ferry, said preparation and a year of practice helped them win first place in the coed division. Last year, they won second. Painter said it felt great to win, but Regatta means more. "It means fun, camaraderie, team building, and it's good for school environment," he said. "It's good to have the school come together to do something fun."
Lexy McKeeman is a pre-biology major at IU Indianapolis and a writer for The Campus Citizen. She enjoys writing, reading and spending time with loved ones in her free time, and is passionate about science and environmental conservation.
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