CLARION, Pa., Oct. 29 – The Siler Center will be holding it’s annual Fall Walk throughout campus. Today, children, parents and staff have dressed in Halloween costumes and paraded around Clarion University for more than a decade.

“We’ve been doing it for 17 or 18 years now,” said Barb McClaine, who has worked at the Siler Center since it opened.

The parade has been extended this year, after some departments requested that the costumed caravan come through.

It is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. today, beginning at Siler and touring through seven buildings before ending in Gemmell.

This year, additional people will be marching in the parade.

Members of Clarion University’s Pregnancy Parenting Recourse Initiative will be participating in the parade by carrying signs protesting the closing of the Siler Center.

“We’re going to make signs in hopes of changing the direction that seems to be a step backward,” said Dr. Robert Girvan, co-adviser of PPRI. “The idea is to change a pretty abrupt decision that did not factor in the families.”

Beside the presence of a peaceful protest during the Fall Walk, petitions have been circulating campus in an effort to keep the Siler Center open.

“Essentially, it is just an effort to make the administration keep it open,” said Dr. Thomas Rourke, co-adviser of PPRI.

So far there have been 250 student signatures, not including faculty petitions still outstanding.

“We’re hoping to get them in by the end of the week,” said Rourke.

PPRI is also hoping for a delay on the Siler Center closure. The petitions will be turned into Dr. Harry Tripp, who Rourke says is an “administrator supportive of efforts” made to keep the campus day care open.

Siler Center staff are remaining neutral about the peaceful protests.

“No Siler staff will be carrying signs and no petitions have Siler staff signatures,” said Diane Lutz, director of Siler Center.

“This is not to be a spectacle of the children. We don’t want to bring children into a political issue,” Lutz said.