While the eighth annual HawkFest was attended by over 3,000 guests this past weekend, alumni and current students were disappointed in the significant changes made to the annual tradition.

The weekend festivities included the Family Weekend Barbeque, multiple St. Joe’s sports games, the Kinney Center Walk/Run for Autism and the Young Alumni Beer Garden.

According to Thomas Monaghan, assistant vice president of Alumni Relations, the Family Weekend Barbeque was advertised to current students and their family members, with the majority of attendees being underclassmen.

“To be honest, I don’t like the downscaling,” Lauren Finore ’06 said. “I thought it was well done before.”

The Family Weekend Barbeque, held on Villiger Lawn, replaced the “Taste of Philly” event, a decision made by the university. In previous years, “Taste of Philly” was held on Curran Lawn on the Merion side of campus.

Sarah Waro ’20 is a Residence Assistant in Villiger Residence Hall and while the conviencene of this year’s HawkFest barbeque location was great, the Taste of Philly was missed.

“I really loved that [‘Taste of Philly’] because they had different [food] options,” Waro said.

Anthony Carfagno ’60, founding member of the Erivan K. Haub School Board of Visitors, was also disappointed in the changes made to this year’s HawkFest.

“If you look at this [barbeque], the Taste of Philly had three times more people,” he said. “I think it is important that we bring back the Taste of Philly. It brings more alumni back to campus. Some people arrived here today and didn’t know that it wasn’t the same.”

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The Young Alumni Beer Garden was held on the Maguire Campus, across the street from the Family Barbeque.

According to Carfagno, HawkFest provides the opportunity to get alumni back to campus in order to ask them to donate to the university.

HawkFest dates back to the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when the event was held in October and called Hawktoberfest. According to Thomas Monaghan, assistant vice president of Alumni Relations, Tony Bennett performed as a headliner in the late ‘80s for the event.

In 2011, after an over twenty year hiatus, HawkFest was brought back to St. Joe’s.

This year’s HawkFest was noticeably smaller and missing elements that have appeared in previous years, including bounce houses and activities for young children.

Jim Finore ’07 has remained active within the St. Joe’s community since graduating and has attended previous HawkFest events. This year, however, the alumni aspect was not as prominent as it had been in previous years, according to Finore.

“Quite honestly, we did not know it was a family only weekend,” Finore said. “We thought it was an alumni thing too, because it normally is. Normally they have communication about it and there has been nothing this year.”

The Young Alumni (2014-2018 graduates) Beer Garden has been going on for the past three years and draws the largest amount of people to Hawk Hill, according to Monaghan.

“It’s one of the few events, I’ll be honest with you, that we don’t have to worry too much about because the word’s [out] there,” Monaghan said. “So many of our events we struggle to get the word out and get to the right people and the right channels, but [not with] the beer garden.”

According to Monaghan, the Young Alumni Beer Garden had been sold out for weeks, reaching an estimated 600-650 attendees, the highest number yet. Carfagno said it was the only area of the event where attendance numbers had increased.

Adriana Capizzi ’17 attended the Young Alumni Beer Garden event and also noticed the downsizing.

“I am kind of sad, because I did like the Taste of Philly, and it was nice to get some Philadelphia food, especially since I’m not from around Philly,” Capizzi said.

A crucial role in bringing alumni back to campus is to ask them to contribute back, Carfagno noted.

Support from current students, alumni and faculty is important to keep everything running smoothly, Monaghan said.

“It takes a number of people all across campus to come together to figure out how to make this happen,” Monaghan said. “I’d love to keep new fresh things each year, so we provide some excitement and energy to what we’re doing.”