Virginia Peng, Contributing Illustrator

It was the dead of winter in 2022 as students slowly trickled back into Pauli Murray college after a month-long winter break. A blanket of thick, icy, dirty snow covered the main courtyard, except something was different: sticking out (and smelling) like a sore thumb, was the rotting pumpkin — cue scary music. Little did Paulimurs know that this lone rotting pumpkin would turn into something extremely symbolic of the very community it inhabited.

Head of Pauli Murray college Tina Lu — or Prof T, as Paulimurs call her — lives overlooking the main courtyard of Murray. From Halloween to the festival of Sukkot to the Chinese New Year, Prof T aims to decorate her patio for students of all backgrounds, ethnicities and corners of the world to enjoy. Doing this exact thing, Prof T decorated her patio last fall with pumpkins galore, some of which Paulimurs carved and others that weren’t looking too hot. Little did she know that one of these lucky pumpkins would be the seed of a new generation of Pauli pumpkins. 

She doesn’t know how it happened, but somehow one of the pumpkins on her banister was thrown out in the main courtyard right in front of the patio. At first, it didn’t seem like a big deal, but no one seemed to want to pick it up. The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. The leaves slowly turned orange and began to fall until bare trees and snow-laden grounds characterized Yale. Then, the pumpkin rotting process began. It almost felt as if the pumpkin had gained a cheese touch-like quality. 

Most Limurs walked by the “gross” and “mushy” pumpkin, as Prof T said, every day. But no one picked it up. It got to a point where it was simply too gross to even walk near. As spring came along, magic occurred in secret as the seeds of the infamous rotting pumpkin began to germinate (as seeds do). The flooring from last year’s commencement ceremony tent provided the perfect shield so that no one saw the beginnings of the patch. Once the flooring was removed, however, a small pumpkin plant had magically appeared — the originator of the new Pauli pumpkin patch.

With a bit of begging, Prof T convinced the grounds and facilities workers not to mow down the patch, and suddenly there was the first-ever pumpkin patch in a residential college. Prof T posted the momentous patch on the Murray Instagram over the summer, and the comments flooded with Limurs excitement to see the patch in person. Comments like “LEAVE IT LEAVE IT LEAVE IT WE NEED THE PAULI PUMPKIN PATCH,” “best news ever,” and “How can it ever be disputed again: Murray >” were shared by Limurs all across the world during summer break. 

Late August came around, and it was the talk of the college. Pumpkins from the patch were even used for the Family weekend reception to truly show the families of Limurs what our college was capable of. A not-so-scary rotting pumpkin had germinated into something truly delightful. 

As Prof T perfectly put it, “I feel like it proves that the Pauli Murray community is so generative and fruitful.”

Although facilities are eager to mow down the disruptive and somewhat unruly patch of pumpkins, Limurs have been able to enjoy the patch during the fall months. Recently, Prof T has used the pumpkins as decorations for her Sukkot tent she had in celebration of the festival of Sukkot and for wholesome college pumpkin carving activities. 

The patch, which has unfortunately been through a detrimental mildew infection, is set to be cleared very soon. But, the spirit of the Pauli Pumpkin patch is set to remain amongst the college’s residents. 

Plus – who knows? Will a rotting pumpkin 2.0 make a comeback after this fall season? That is entirely up to the spirit of the powerful Pauli pumpkin patch.