Pitt students strut stuff for charities

Sure they’re good at math and science, but engineering majors are also a diverse group with… Sure they’re good at math and science, but engineering majors are also a diverse group with many other hobbies, ranging from scarfing down a spicy kielbasa in one bite to playing tonsil hockey – though preferably not in that order.

Dressed to impress and strutting across the Benedum Auditorium stage at the Engineering Student Council’s annual date auction Thursday night, students from the different engineering departments gave the cheering bidders a peek at more than just their hidden talents.

Chants of, “Take it off! Take it off!” were met with negotiations from the dates like, “I’ll lose the shirt for two more dollars.”

The auction was held as a fund raiser for E-week, the annual inter-department competition for Pitt’s engineering majors, slated for March 14 through 23.

“E-week is a week-long event where the engineering departments are pitted against each other in different competitions,” E-week Chair Megan Boerio said.

“It’s been happening for about 50 years and features different events like ‘Mystery Eats,’ where the competitors have to eat a bunch of crazy things, and ‘Duct Tape Wars,’ where the teams duct tape their smallest girls to the wall and see how long they can stay up.”

The volunteers at the date auction and future participants in E-week events compete on behalf of their departments within the School of Engineering and earn points toward their team’s total.

The money earned from the bidders and $4 charge at the door of the auction will go toward funding the ball that traditionally culminates E-week and relieves much anticipation by announcing the winning department.

For other E-week events, the fruits of financial competitions like “Penny Wars” will go to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Whether their motive was to help fund-raise or to buy a date for the upcoming week, students came to the auction ready to bid.

“The winning bidder, after all bidding stops, has to come up and sign a contract,” Emcee Raghav Khanna said. “If you can’t pay now, you can give us an IOU, but if you don’t pay up, the University police will come after you, which of course means absolutely nothing will happen at all.”

For some, IOUs kept them in the running for particularly popular dates. As freshman Mary Barbish stood onstage, three male students continually out-bid one another until one dropped out, saying, “I don’t have any more money for food!”

The students who put themselves up for auction gave mixed reviews about the experience.

“I’m feeling nervous, but I know that if no one bids on me, I’ve got someone to bail me out,” junior Bailey Roche said. “I’ve even got a hand signal and everything.”

Volunteering for the second time as a junior, Kerri Gatti said, “I got auctioned off as a freshman. I felt like a total prostitute.”

Christy Hydrean, one of the event’s emcees, said she also took to the auction block in the past. “It was embarrassing, but it’s something that you have to do as an engineer,” she said.

Modeling suits and throwing jackets into the crowd, the dates’ fears diminished once onstage, though more than one answered the emcees’ question, “What’s your most embarrassing moment?” with a sheepish, “Right now.”