For the second year in a row, Moffett Library’s “Rooftop Heroes” event brought together students and faculty alike for another mini-convention in the library’s atrium.
The convention included several presenters from last year’s line up, as well as new faces. There was also a small booth for the eSports and Gaming Club and a costume contest to close out the evening. Each presenter had their own flare and niche, but each pushed and pulled with the idea of what a hero is.
These presentations were the main draw for students. History sophomore Micheal McNiel and sociology sophomore Maggie Hemm came to the event to watch history associate professor Tiffany Ziegler and English professor Kirsten Lodge present.
“We both have doctor Lodge as a professor, and she even asked us like, ‘Oh what should we, like should I do my presentation over this or this?’ And so, she asked her classes’ input, and so we both were like, ‘Oh, well, now, like, now we feel like we should go. It sounded cool’,” Hemm said.
McNiel explained that because both Zeigler and Lodge’s presentations were so close together in time, she thought it would be a good idea to go see both.
“I have doctor Zeigler. So I got the email and I saw that they were both going like, within the same time frame, like within a couple hours, so I was like, ‘We should just go to this, I know they’re going to be talking about something cool,” McNeil said.
However, German professor Kyung Lee Gagum’s presentation was in between Zeigler and Lodge’s presentation. Though neither student came to the event because of Gagum, her presentation surprised the two.
“Doctor Gagum’s [presentation] came out of left field. Because we were looking at the schedule, and we were like, ‘Solo Leveling, Underground Hero, well that sounds cool.’ And she was talking about manga and anime and we were like, this is not at all what we’d thought it’d be but it was still super cool,” Hemm said.
Instruction librarian and event coordinator Joseph McNeeley said he hopes the event will grow.
McNeeley says the event intends to gather the creative forces around campus to create a self-sustainable mini-convention.
“The idea, to me, was that our campus is so filled with so many creative, talented, brilliant people that I knew, I just knew, that we could do this thing ourselves, and it could just be this campus event. Just with campus presenters and you know, campus vendors and campus artists,” McNeeley said.
However, McNeeley struggled to get student organizations and artists on campus involved with the event.
“I have not been able to figure out how to get student organizations involved, and I have not been able to figure out how to really create buzz among the student population,” McNeeley said.
Despite that, McNeeley said he still has big hopes for the event. The plan for next year is to try to expand outwards into the community and get vendors from local businesses.
McNeeley said he is hoping to achieve a sense of community like no other with Rooftop Heroes.
“There’s a thing that happens when I go to a renaissance festival, or a ‘Star Trek’ convention or a Comic-Con, there’s a thing that when you walk through the doors, and there’s just that vibe that you get. It’s like something in the air, and you’re like, ‘these are my people. This feels like home,’” McNeeley said. “And that’s something I was hoping to be able to generate here, and we’re not there yet. We’re not there yet. And I think that it’s because we’re not big enough yet, we don’t have enough going on. We don’t have that thing in the air that happens currently. But I think that we can.”
