San José State University’s Associated Students hosted its sixteenth annual Fire on the Fountain at Tower Lawn on Thursday evening.
The goal of Associated Students is to “strengthen the Spartan community,” according to its website.
Fire on the Fountain is an SJSU tradition that occurs every year before the homecoming football game. This year, the Spartans played against the Utah State Aggies at CEFCU Stadium on Saturday.
Several student organizations such as Planned Parenthood Generation Action, Pacific Islander Student Association and Spartan Fencing Club had booths set up on Tower Lawn and gave out free swag.
Communication studies senior Valerie Chung said she never attended the event in previous years and regretted it, so she wanted to experience her first and last Fire on the Fountain.
“[I] was hoping to experience my last year [at SJSU] as much as possible to make the best memories with my closest friends,” she said.
Chung said she is also a member of the Vietnamese Student Association and wanted to support her fellow members’ lion and fan dance performance that night.
“It represents my Vietnamese culture [and] I also enjoyed watching other organizations perform because it let me be aware of other cultures besides my own,” Chung said.
Electrical engineering sophomore Phillip Tran said this was his second time performing the lion dance for the Vietnamese Student Association and he felt confident in his dancing abilities.
“I was more excited to showcase a traditional lion dance performance rather than the modern one performed last year,” Tran said.
Tran was accompanied by three other dancers on stage this year with a full band. Last year, he performed alone to background music.
A.S. President Sarab Multani and A.S. Controller Dhruv Varshney emceed the event, which Multani said was a phenomenal experience because they are great colleagues and friends outside of the office.
“Our chemistry felt so natural, almost like we were in a Board of Directors meeting,” Multani said. “We had a great mix of passion, collaboration, light-heartedness and excitement.”
Multani said this year’s Fire on the Fountain made him proud of the strong community present at SJSU.
“The conglomeration of culture combined with the incredible sense of community I experienced while looking down at the crowd from the stage, will be a memory that I will hold dearly to me for the rest of my life,” Multani said.
Fire on the Fountain was complete with an exhilarating act from fire dancers and a performance led by the SJSU dance team, marching band and color guard to SJSU’s signature cheer.
SJSU’s football team greeted the crowd and reminded students to show out for the homecoming game and fill the student section. SJSU President Cynthia Teniente-Matson reinforced the football team’s message and thanked the crowd for coming to Fire on the Fountain.
This year’s Homecoming Royalty was announced at the end of the event and each of the four candidates answered a question onstage. A QR code was displayed on screen for students to vote for their two favorite candidates.
The four students running for homecoming queen were criminology junior Bryanna Lazo, child and adolescent development junior Ada Ochuru, management information systems junior Jennifer Rocha and social work senior Vanessa Rosales.
Lazo said she felt nervous standing onstage at Fire on the Fountain, but she was excited because her friends were cheering her on in the crowd.
“My heart was racing so fast but in the best way possible, and it’s so funny because when I got on stage all of my worries went away and I was just smiling the whole time,” Lazo said.
Lazo said she wanted to run for homecoming court because she is an on-air DJ for KSJS, SJSU’s student-run college radio station, and she is heavily involved in Greek life.
“[Running] for homecoming court means just having the chance to represent the whole [school] and show how diverse our school is,” Lazo said.
Aside from running for homecoming court, Rocha works for A.S. as an event coordinator. She was involved in the planning and execution of the annual SJSU tradition and said she put in relentless effort since the summer to ensure its success.
“On the day of the event, there were so many emotions at once but our primary goal was to [make it] a memorable and enjoyable event for students who work hard every day and represent San José State University,” Rocha said.
Rocha said Fire on the Fountain this year surpassed her expectations because of the turnout rate from both students and staff members.
“While last year’s event was extremely fun to attend, there’s no comparison to the excitement and pride of hosting and managing it this year,” Rocha said. “We saw a significant increase in attendees, including many enthusiastic alumni and community members.”
