On Tuesday, Housing and Residence Life is hosting the first Zombie Walk and are hopeful that students will be dying to participate. 

Blair Jensen, assistant director of HRL, said Zombie Walk is part of a larger initiative HRL is hosting this week called Geek Week. Jensen said Zombie Walk requires no preregistration, but students will have to check in beforehand. The event is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. and end at 8:30 p.m., and offers a zombie selfie station, snacks and a Thriller dance party after the walk. 

“It’s just designed to be a fun, active, social activity for students,” Jensen said. 

The walk will be a one-mile route starting at Centennial Mall, making its way down Avenue of Champions, over to University Boulevard and ending back at Centennial Mall. Apart from being a social activity for students, Jensen said it’s also meant to create an atmosphere of community.

“The students get out of their rooms, enjoy the weather and get to meet some other people on campus, so it’s about fostering a sense of campus community,” she said. 

Part of fostering this sense of campus community also involves the volunteers from the Department of Theater & Dance aiding Jensen in zombie makeup for the event. Bowling Green freshman Sarah Guthrie is one of the students doing makeup for the event. 

Guthrie gained her experience of doing makeup from her background in cosplay. She said her interests in cosplay began three years ago when her dad made her watch the first episode of “The Walking Dead.” This made her wonder if she could imitate the style of what they did on the show.

“I’m a huge chicken, I get scared super easily so it’s really ironic that I’m in love with gore makeup,” Guthrie said. 

She said the makeup she’ll be doing for Zombie Walk won’t be as intricate as what she normally does, but will use her experience of cosplay to her advantage. When doing makeup she said she takes the facial structure in mind before applying different styles of makeup.

“You see the person’s face and you’re like, ‘okay, what features can I change and what’s prominent on their face that I can change?’,” she said. 

Brandyn Atherton, sophomore from Owensboro, is another student doing makeup for Zombie Walk. Atherton said he thought it’d be interesting to participate in the artistic side of Zombie Walk, having seen walks in bigger cities before. 

“I’m looking for the challenge of putting my artistic abilities onto a canvas that isn’t a canvas it’s a person,” Atherton said. 

Jensen said she hopes Zombie Walk will be successful and will become a traditional program on campus. In the larger scope, she also hopes Geek Week will be a success among students.

“It’s meant to celebrate geek culture and provide a variety of activities that appeal to many different students on campus,” Jensen said.

Zombie Walk will start at 7 p.m. at Centennial Mall. Makeup begins at 6:30 p.m. Other events for Geek Week include: Careerday Preppers at 5 p.m. in Downing Student Union 2001 on April 1, a trivia night in the DSU recreation room starting at 7 p.m. also on April 1 and the Comic Book Ball at 7 p.m. in DSU Nite Class on April 2.