Pace University held its first ever Communiversity Day on Sept. 28 to strengthen ties with the Pleasantville community. Pace President Marvin Krislov has said he wants to encourage the university’s neighbors to visit the campus more often. 

“Pace does have a very strong relationship with the community,” Pace University’s Coordinator of Student Affairs, Erika Schmid said. “I think there are a lot of different opportunities though to strengthen that relationship between the local schools and businesses just to kind of keep each other aware of the different events that we have going on that could be mutually beneficial for our students and for the community.”

Pace teamed up with the Harris Project to kick off Communiversity Day with the Co-Occurring Disorders in Adolescence (CODA) walk. CODA was founded in Westchester County by Stephanie Marquesano, who lost her son to addiction. He suffered from anxiety and ADHD before a fatal overdose. CODA is meant to raise awareness of substance abuse in young individuals who also have mental health disorders. 

“We wanted to rally around a community member who had something, who was as passionate about a topic as she is, and then build out our Communiversity Day from there,” said Rachel Carpenter, Pace’s Dean for Students.

The rest of the day was packed with family friendly events. Multiple events took place at the Environmental Center, which has farm animals, birds of prey, a garden and a greenhouse. The day’s events also included Pace football and women’s soccer games. There were also food trucks around campus who donated part of their earnings to CODA. 

Other events around campus incorporated the CODA cause into Communiversity Day. The football team, cheerleading squad, dance team and soccer team all sported the CODA logo of two stars on their uniforms. Pace was not the only place rallying for CODA. It was also integrated into the homecoming football game in the Pleasantville Union Free School District, which took place the same weekend.