History of GladPad

During my freshman year at a school where Greek life reigned, the concept of GladPad came to me and my friend Matt early one April morning (late one April night) while we were sitting around trying to come up with something to sing. The original song, the first release from GladPad Studios, GladPad, came first and the concept followed. It started originally as simply a name for the room that Colin and I inhabited during our sophomore year, but with each year it progressed more and more to encompass a troop of "independents" and "Greeks" alike.

The concept was happiness, genderlessness and purposelessness. GladPad stood for nothing and everything, and included everyone. During my senior year, I hung the large G-L-A-D-P-A-D letters from the balcony of my dorm room that year in Rector Hall, much to the chagrin of the Residence Hall staff that year. However, after a meeting with my Residential Advisor and a petition from the rest of the students in North Quad promising that they would not hang anything from their windows, GladPad was saved. The school newspaper, the DePauw, even ran a story about GladPad.

With funding from the Residence Hall Association, GladPad was added to the list of "Greek Rush" participants during the Fall of 1998. The multimedia exhibit, a highly socially, religiously and politically irreverent display of material designed to present new inductees with the tastes, sounds, feelings, sights and smells of the GladPad concept, was put on display in the lobby of Rector Hall in a fantastically ridiculous ceremony that I barely had anything to do with. Watching as GladPad was taken out of my hands and into the community brought warm feelings to GladPadiators everywhere, I'm sure...