A quintessential Vassar senior experience is 100 Nights, a celebration of the remaining days until Commencement. Though the idea of being so close to the end of our time at Vassar is daunting, many seniors took the event as a chance to forget about looming deadlines for an evening and fully immerse themselves in the fun of solving a murder mystery.
In the arc of a typical Vassar career, the Alumnae House may serve many purposes, including a location for department dinners with invited speakers or a place where parents may stay when visiting. However, for many seniors, their first experience with Alumnae House was the dreaded COVID-19 quarantine. Before the days of an open campus or a hotel quarantine, students who tested positive for COVID-19 were placed in one of the rooms in Alumnae House. But those days were far from anyone’s mind on Friday night, as seniors filled the halls of the gorgeous inn.
The Senior Class Council had enticed students with varied offerings, including a prosecco bar, jazz, poker and, the main event of the night, a murder mystery beginning 30 minutes after the start of the event.
Turnout was high, as was the loyalty to the theme of “100 Nights 100 years ago.” Only a few minutes after 8 p.m., a long line of seniors dressed in suits and slinky dresses, adorned with feathers and pipes, led into the reception area of the Alumnae House. Coincidentally, Alumnae House is celebrating its own 100-year anniversary this year, meaning that the location was more on theme than anyone else. The architecture, gorgeous on any day, was especially appreciated on Friday evening, contributing to the immersive experience. The building itself was decorated to fit the theme as well, with high-top tables topped with real flame candles and even more feathers. Balloons and soft, 1920s-esque jazz completed the ambience for the evening.
An unexpected delight was the vast array of snacks freely available in the main room. Though dessert snacks had been promised, the variety of food catered by Twisted Soul exceeded expectations. Savory options, like nachos and pulled pork or tofu sliders, as well as sweet treats including chocolate tarts, mini pavlovas and cheesecake were on constant rotation for hungry students throughout the night. As for the prosecco bar, a free drink was offered to the first 100 seniors who arrived at the event, and excited students lined up clutching their red tickets. The bar offered a variety of prosecco with different mixers, along with a non-alcoholic peach and ginger beer drink. The brightly colored drinks in seniors’ hands contributed to the feeling that we had been transported back to the era of Jay Gatsby, prohibition and the pre-Great Depression cultural high.
Perhaps the highlight of the evening was the intricate murder mystery orchestrated by the Senior Class Council. Introduced at 8:30 p.m. by two students throwing a dummy with John Bradley’s face off a balcony in the refreshments room, it featured a variety of characters. Many of these were on the Council themselves, but a few special guests, such as President Bradley herself, accompanied by John Bradley, were included. Each character, dressed in their own unique outfit, had a puzzle or a set of clues that needed to be solved in order to eliminate suspects and narrow in on the one suspect who had actually committed the crime of pushing “John Bradley” off of the balcony. Students flitted throughout the rooms in search of all the characters and all of the clues, intent on discovering the culprit. One senior, Noah Babb, noted in a written correspondence, “The camp of the characters that everyone played, especially [President Bradley]’s, got me excited to run around Alumnae House and solve word searches, which is something I’d never thought would happen.”
At 10 p.m., the final perpetrator was revealed via an announcement. Cheers filled the room as seniors discovered whether their guesses had been correct.
Tucked away behind the refreshment room was the poker room. Students were engrossed in the games, and shouts of excitement could be heard throughout. A table for craps (a dice game) was also set up in the library, one of the main destinations for those solving the murder mystery. Across the room was a shelf of yearbooks, ranging from 100 years ago to the present day. The yearbook from 1924 was displayed on a table in front of the shelf, and students flipped through it and reflected on their place in Vassar’s history. “My favorite part was looking at the yearbook. I looked at the yearbooks, the one from 100 years ago, and that was intriguing to see what life was like 100 years ago,” Abby Kotar ’24 said. “They mentioned the Jewett fire alarms and that was kind of nostalgic because we were like ‘They also had fire alarms!’”
Overall, the event far surpassed expectations set by last semester’s senior event—99 Nights—which was a silent disco, and did not provide much variety from usual Vassar events. 100 Nights gave us all an activity to participate in. Babb explained, “The senior council was able to balance the ‘partying’ aspect with the overarching theme of ‘100 years ago,’ and weave in an exciting murder mystery on top of it all.” 100 Nights also raised the stakes for the Senior Class Council. As Jordan Shamoun ’24 said, “It sets the bar high for the other senior events because it was a really successful event.”