A SWEET FEAT

Eight hours, 70 workers and 54,000 cupcakes. You do the math.

Families, students and alumni were greeted for this year's Maryland Day by a mass of yellow, red, black and white cupcakes, strategically arranged in the shape of the university's seal.

The free cupcakes, which were displayed under a tent on Hornbake Plaza, took the 76,000 people who attended Saturday's event six hours and 16 minutes to consume. At the end of the day, many left with trays of frosted treats in an effort to unload them all.

"It's a helluva lot of cupcakes," said Brad Nolet, a freshman letters and sciences major. "I love the design and I think it's great."

The project, which cost nearly $15,000 and took weeks of baking, topped anything the university has previously done to celebrate its anniversary, including baking a massive strawberry shortcake in 2006.

The night before Maryland Day, more than 40 student volunteers and 30 Dining Services staff members worked until dawn, unpacking cupcakes that had been baked weeks beforehand and arranging them in a design that spanned 60 feet long and 45 feet wide. It took the 70 workers eight hours to place the sweets, which had previously been stored in freezers all over the campus.

"I have no desire for cupcakes ever again," said junior special education major Ashley Winterling, one of the volunteers. "The smell is just overwhelming. It's just too sweet."

University Spokesman Millree Williams said though plans called for 50,000 cupcakes to be made, the university baked 4,000 extra in case of emergencies.

Volunteers had to attend two preparatory meetings to learn the proper technique for placing so many cupcakes so quickly. According to those placing cupcakes early Saturday morning, each volunteer was expected to place 1,200 cupcakes, and an intense, but silent, competition emerged to see who could do so the fastest.

A group of special education majors who dedicated their evening to the event placed 520 cupcakes in 15 minutes, but frenzied Dining Services administrative assistant Vivian Saavedra, who was in charge of organizing the volunteers, did not seem impressed.

"Most of them are doing a great job and they're just plugging away at it," she said before shooting the group of special education majors an accusatory glance. "They're just standing around; I don't know what they are doing," she said before threatening to reprimand them.

Freshman engineering major Nick Wagman was among the students "plugging away at it" alongside freshman biology major Landon Katz. The duo placed 5,000 cupcakes within the first two hours.

Katz, who worried that other volunteers weren't placing an equal number of cupcakes on each row, bravely crawled under tables stacked with cupcakes to fix mistakes and fill in gaps.

"Just the prospect of arranging 50,000 cupcakes is just extraordinary, incomprehensible, and, well, Marylandtastic," Katz said.

The two were driven by dedicated food service manager and pastry chef Jeff Russo, who was whirling around the tent during the preparations, giving orders and refusing to stop for a "lunch break" with the rest of the crew at 1 a.m.

"He's very passionate about the project," Wagman said.

The hours of work seemed to pay off the next day, as visitors flocked to the table to sample the delicious design.

"I think it's a unique challenge," said Elise Pittman, a senior geography information science major. "They're giving something back to us; it's a great way for the dining hall to be a part of the Maryland community."

Alumnus Derrick Harris called the arrangement "an impressive feat" and found the treats to his liking, calling his cupcake "good, soft, just right."

Despite all the money, effort and time that went into the sweet treats, not everyone in the crowd was impressed.

"Its a big waste of food, [and] the cupcakes were not that delicious," said graduate student Ben White, who attended Maryland Day with his family. "To be honest, it doesn't do justice to the true culinary capabilities that our university should be demonstrating. It's a waste of money. What could we have bought with that money instead of 50,000 cupcakes?"

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