Students and staff expressed mixed feelings upon hearing that a long-standing tradition in the Kanter Student Center at Wayne State College is slowly dying out this semester.

The tradition takes place in the Student Center’s upper cafeteria. Whenever one student drops a plate, glass or any other dish, every other student in the cafeteria begins clapping. In recent semesters, however, students didn’t handle the tradition well. Students and staff seem to understand this, as evidenced by fewer instances of the tradition in action.

Students such as senior Ashton Lindsay and freshman Mason Wright felt relieved once the tradition started to die down, with Wright believing the decrease in the tradition shows “growth and maturity.”

“I don’t like it,” Lindsay said. “I think it embarrasses people, and it’s just a silly mistake, and we don’t need to make it a big, public deal.”

Members of the upper cafeteria’s staff, like Joyce Diediker, agree with Lindsay.

“They probably think it’s really fun when they’re doing it, like ‘Oh, this is funny’,” Diediker said. “But the person that it happens to, I’m sure, is probably very embarrassed. We all are human, and sometimes, everybody’s going to drop something or do something embarrassing in their life, and they don’t need to have people pointing their fingers at them.”

Despite the animosity toward the tradition, some students, like Kelsey Anderson, felt sad to see the tradition go.

“I personally think it is really funny,” Anderson said. “Whenever it happens, I always think it kind of brings people together, and we have a good time. I do think it can embarrass people a little bit, but, you know, we can all have thick skin and it’s mostly fun in the end.”

Even longtime students of WSC, like Kyle Eskens, shared mixed views on the tradition.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily the best tradition we have, or anything like that,” Eskens said. “When I was the person clapping, it really didn’t bother me because everyone else was doing it, which obviously isn’t the best thing. When I was on the receiving end, I didn’t think it was too embarrassing. It was just another part of Wayne.”

While the clapping tradition faded, its effect on students and staff still stands.