Hinman’s got game ‘ this year’s theme for the residential community’s Dorm Wars ‘ rang true over the weekend as at least 200 Hinman alumni returned to Binghamton University to attend events celebrating the community’s 40th Anniversary.

Hinman’s history was showcased during the weekend-long celebration and provided alumni and current residents with the opportunity to submerse themselves in the community’s culture of co-rec football and stories of years past.

The celebration kicked off Friday night in the Hinman Commons and continued all throughout Saturday with programs that included an all-day Meet and Greet for alumni, an alumni career panel entitled, ‘I Never Thought I Would End Up Where I Am Today,’ the 40th Anniversary Banquet and the dedication of a memorial bench for former Faculty Master Al Haber on Sunday morning. During the sold-out banquet with over 220 in attendance, there was a 20-minute multimedia slide show of Hinman History.

‘I really think of this homecoming as a time when many alums say their hearts are still in Hinman,’ said Hinman Faculty Master Al Vos. ‘And now they’re coming home to where their heart was.’

Vos, who has been Hinman’s Faculty Master for the last 10 years, organized a display of Hinman history for the event, compiling pictures that ranged from the construction of the community 40 years ago to a layout of all of the Hinman Halitosis’ (the community’s newsletter) that has run since Hinman’s creation.

Co-rec football is another Hinman tradition that was created in the 1970s by Bob Giomi, who was a resident director in the community and a coordinator during that time. Co-rec is a game of two-hand touch football that is played with girls as quarterbacks and normally six people on the field (three girls, three boys) per team.

Giomi is now a dean at University of California at Berkeley and was honored with a plaque and a standing ovation at Saturday night’s anniversary banquet for his contributions to the community.

Though this year’s anniversary marks a special celebration for Hinman, Vos, with the help of alumni and current students, has had regular contact with alumni each summer for ‘Co-rec in the Park,’ a program where residents and alumni meet in New York City’s Central Park to play co-rec football. Vos said there are normally approximately 50 people in attendance for the event.

Diane Parkman, who graduated from Binghamton University in 1982 with a degree in biology, returned this year to celebrate not only Hinman’s 40th Anniversary, but her 25th since graduation.

‘I met my husband here, ‘ Parkman, who now runs a canoe outfitter and works on environmental science programs, said while browsing through old photographs and yearbooks on display in the Hinman Commons. ‘So we have a lot of connections back here.’

Parkman explained that she and her husband met in Smith Hall when they lived on the same floor. Both attributed the tradition of co-rec football and a great resident assistant to not only their meeting, but also the strong sense of community they felt while living in Hinman.

Maureen Considine, a former Hughes RA who graduated with a degree in political science in 1984 also looked back at her time in Hinman fondly.

‘Our floor was Hughes 2B so we held the ‘Hughes 2B Legal’ party that lasted until midnight the night that the drinking age went up,’ Considine, who now works with autistic children, recalled. ‘It [Hinman] was just always so much fun.’

‘There was always so much going on,’ she added with a smile.

Though the layout of the campus has changed significantly since Parkman and Considine graduated ‘ with the addition of Mountainview College, the New University Union and other facilities around campus ‘ the atmosphere in Hinman College has not.

‘What can I say?’ said Nixon Saget II, a junior electrical engineering major and public affairs chair in the Hinman College Council who has lived in Hinman for the last three years. ‘Hinman is awesome.’