ASUCC hosts events in UCC Student Center to increase on-campus engagement
While UCC students have begun to return to in-person learning, the campus still resembles a ghost town. To get students back on campus, ASUCC has been scheduling an assortment of events and activities in the LaVerne Murphy Student Center.
“The events are fun and almost always include food and drink. We’ve been using a variety of ‘national day of’ dates to create calendar-themed events,” Marjan Coester, director for student engagement and dean of students, said. The events are meant to help students make connections helpful for learning and retention.
ASUCC recently hosted food-themed celebrations such as taco Tuesday, national pizza day, bubble gum day and hot chocolate day were among recent national ‘day of’ events.
Other recent events included an open mic night and retro guitar hero gaming sessions on throwback Thursday.
“Because we have a small team, the events are easy to plan and execute,” Coester said.
All in-person events are held at the Student Center unless otherwise noted and are announced through the Hawk Hangout shell on Canvas and via student gmail.
Despite the variety of these calendar events, few students are participating. Many students have experienced illness this term which may be a reason for keeping them off-campus. However, even students who are attending class on campus are struggling to add these events into their schedules.
One student who has chosen to remain anonymous offered the reasons they’ve struggled to participate in these and similar events.
“The Student Center events and Take Flight classes seem interesting and fun. Although, without a monthly calendar of events to look at ahead of time, planning to participate in these activities geared towards students is nearly impossible,” she said.
ASUCC and student engagement staff are also working with the facilities director Jess Miller to rearrange the Student Center. See The Mainstream’s story on Student Center upgrades.
Contact me at:
UCCMainstream@yahoo.com
For more articles by J.R. Williams please click here.
