Ashby Signature Projects
Ashby’s Committees have grown into our signature projects. Students sign up to participate in at least two projects per academic year. Projects hold regular planning meetings and small programs in preparation for the final events.
Fall
- Rocky Horror Picture Show: For more than a decade, Ashby students have come together to produce a full shadow-cast production of the cult-classic film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. What began as a couple of students having eccentric fun has turned into a well-loved tradition. Today, the annual production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show has evolved into a multi-night affair embraced not only by the Ashby community but other fans as well.
- Haunted House: As Halloween looms on the horizon, students transform Mary Foust into a professional grade Haunted House attraction. Students work together to choose a theme, and then dive into weeks of planning, decoration, and advertising. On a Saturday near Halloween, the doors to Mary Foust are flung open to the general public. All proceeds are donated to charities.
- Foustgiving: Ashby faculty and students work together to prepare a Thanksgiving banquet. We turn the parlor into a dining room to share a meal and celebrate the community with skits, songs, and decorations.
- Yule Ball: Before exams and winter break separates the community for a month, students put on a semi-formal dance. The Yule Ball provides one last opportunity to socialize before exams. To fortify students for exams, Ashby alumni provide goody bags full of candy.
Spring
- 48-Hour Film Festival: Ashby students write, direct, and produce short films in just 48 hours. Once the films are finished, we have a screening and award prizes in various categories.
- Foustercon: Foustercon is an annual convention much like Comic-Con, but smaller. Held in Mary Foust, it features presentations, roundtable discussions, local businesses and vendors, a nerd flea market, and more about video games, manga, Anime, comic books, graphic novels, and all things nerd culture.
- Fouststock: Fouststock is a local music festival organized by the Ashby community every Spring. Fousters invite a wide variety of local musicians to provide an afternoon of entertainment for the UNCG community.
Year Long
- Membership/Yearbook: Membership helps recruit students (incoming freshmen and some rising sophomores). Membership spokespeople represent Ashby at University events such as Spartan Showcase in the Fall and two Destination UNCG events in the Spring. They explain Ashby College and its social and academic benefits to students and parents during information sessions and student-led tours of Mary Foust. During the year, Membership chronicles our events in pictures and collects them into a yearbook/slideshow that we share with everyone at Ashby Commencement.
- Garden Plot: Ashby maintains a community garden plot throughout the year, growing seasonal vegetables and herbs, which are harvested for Foustgiving and other community cuisine.
- Foustcast: Foustcast offers an open forum for students to design and create their own audio projects. Produced in our very own multimedia FouSTUDIO, students create podcasts that profile Ashby curricular and co-curricular events, such as coffee house performances, poetry, literature, editorials, core lectures, Fouststock, one act plays, interviews with alumni, Yule Ball, open mic nights, and more.