Homecoming is a big tradition, not just here at Wilkes University, but at many colleges and high schools in the United States. While the football game is a big part of it, so is the homecoming dance and homecoming court.

This year, Wilkes moved from having a homecoming king, queen, prince and princess to homecoming royalty and junior royalty.

This creates an opportunity for students who may not fit within the gender binary to feel included in a tradition. Additionally, it contributes to the dissembling of heteronormativity as it shows that there can be more to a royal pair than just a king and a queen.

Seeing the university being more inclusive and shifting from the old traditions of a gender-specific homecoming court is great, but even with having new homecoming royalty, some still don’t like the idea of homecoming court.

Having a homecoming court is a great tradition, but it sometimes feels like a popularity contest. It is easy to predict who will make it onto the court, and it always seems to be the more popular students. If someone unpredictable makes it onto the court, it may seem like a joke or that votes were cast out of pity.

High school courts can be the same way. The most popular girls and boys make it to the court. Or, sometimes, high schoolers use their vote for the court as a pity vote, typically as a joke, which is cruel within itself. Granted, many Wilkes juniors may not even have had the opportunity to be on a homecoming court in high school due to COVID-19.

College homecoming royalty is very different from high school. It still has the main court being seniors, but it also allows for other underclassmen to be included with junior royalty. It’s great how we are allowing anyone whether male, female or nonbinary to be included into homecoming court rather than having the typical king and queen. It’s pretty clear that many of the students around campus also agree with this change.

In high school, it seems like the main focus is the homecoming dance and who will be named king and queen. But in college, it’s more about alumni coming back to their alma mater and seeing how the university has changed since they left.

It is also a great time for former student athletes to play against current players from their respective sport. It’s a fun tradition to be held during the beginning of the school year but should it should just be a high school tradition not a college one.

Not only can royalty be seen as a harmful popularity contest, but it also simply seems like an unnecessary part of a college homecoming, as it is not necessarily valued among students.

Although the switch from homecoming king and queen to homecoming royalty is a step in the right direction, we have surpassed the need for a homecoming court at Wilkes.

We should instead focus on coming together as a campus community.