Student Life is prioritizing intentional programming and communication amid new leadership, staffing issues and lack of resources.
Following previous Director of Student Engagement Stephen Cucchiara leaving his position over the summer, Associate Director of Student Engagement Noelle San Souci has taken over the position, and she’s collaborating with students and other organizations to work around the ongoing issues the department is facing.
After working in student life departments for almost a decade, San Souci says collaboration with students and organizations is the most important tool in her arsenal. She plans to create a sense of belonging on campus and make it a place for commuter students to want to spend their time by working with students to meet their needs.
“What do students want? Because we can pump out events all day long, [but] it might not be what students want,” San Souci said.
To not fatigue students with a lot of events, San Souci is emphasizing intentional programming. She said that by putting an ear to the masses to listen to clubs, commuters and on-campus residents, student engagement can find the perfect balance of quality and quantity for student events.
She’s also focusing on the way money is spent for events, namely, the way that student government uses the Student Activities Fee, which went up from $16.06 a semester to $30.40 starting this semester. She plans to work alongside SGA to make sure the SAF fees are utilized in a way that gives back to students and engages them.
Events like the Waka Flocka Flame Concert have helped grow tradition on campus, San Souci said. This year’s annual fall concert hosted Flame, who was the largest headliner the event has ever had, and San Souci believes the event was just what students were looking for.
A big hurdle to putting on good campus events is lack of resources. According to San Souci, her department is currently understaffed, but she circumvents this by partnering up with other organizations on campus, including MOSAIC, residence life, SGA and clubs.
San Souci said that clubs have been receptive to wanting to work with student engagement to help bolster their campus presence. Clubs are crucial to San Souci because they’re an outlet for students to connect and get more involved on campus.
The Student Life Department have been assisting clubs by providing them with resources to help them function better. According to San Souci, clubs on campus must go through an orientation, which serves as a crash course on how to grow a club. There are additional trainings throughout the semester for club coordinators through which they learn strategies to put on events and grow their clubs further.
San Souci said that communication with students can also be a barrier when putting on events, noting that mass emails don’t cut through the noise of school life, and event boards have varying degrees of success.
She said that the best and most effective way student engagement has been able to reach students is through a weekly text bulletin that students can opt in to. When the program was first rolled out, there was an increase in attendance at campus events, according to San Souci.
“A lot of students who do opt in to text messaging, especially our commuter students, say they really enjoy it,” San Souci said.
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Noelle San Souci. Headshot courtesy of UCCS.