September 26, 2016
Kyle Guthrie
You may not be able to learn about other students or staff that walk past you on your way to class, but a two departments at UCCS hope to share student and faculty’s stories with the campus to help create a closer community.
Modeled after Humans of New York, Humans of UCCS share stories through a feature photo and description of students and staff, which is found on the UCCS website and social media pages through the Office of First Year and Experience or the Communication Center.
FYE coordinator Stacy Carosa started Humans of UCCS this summer with students in the Mountain Lion 360 program, but expanded the idea to all students and staff once the semester started.
The first student featured in August by Carosa was senior biology major Isabella Reyes.
Reyes, who is also the lead student office assistant for FYE said that one student and one faculty are featured every week. Each person picks from a list of four to five questions to answer for their feature.
Communication Center supervisor Victoria Ortiz started another version of Humans of UCCS in early September at the Communication Center.
The Communication Center started their program as a result of a group assignment for a course that Ortiz took in the spring.
Ortiz’ group believed this project was a great way to spread awareness of the center by using student experiences and stories.
“The main purpose of this is to bring people into the communication center, and we want others to see the community of people at UCCS by following our social media pages,” Ortiz said.
“We want people to know other people’s stories here at UCCS. If you have a story to tell, we want to know that story, so we can share it with others on campus.”
The initial proposal for Humans of UCCS at the communication center focused on only communication students, but the excel center decided that the project should be inclusive of all majors, according to graduate communication student Arielle Glembocki, Communication Center tutor.
“We are really interested in getting everyone’s story and want to make everyone feel comfortable coming to us, not only to tell us their stories, but to come in and practice presentations,” said Glembocki.
The project hopes to spotlight students and link them together through their differences, said Glembocki.
“That is kind of the point of Humans of UCCS: to get all of the different majors communicating with each other and hearing all of their differences.”
Student participation is important to keep the project going. Anyone is welcome to volunteer and participate with their story, said Glembocki.
Student, faculty and staff features can be found on the FYE office website and Facebook page. The Humans of UCCS through the Communication Center are available to read on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.
Students interested in participating in Humans of UCCS can visit the Communication Center in Columbine 312 or call the center at 255-4770. Students can also call the FYE office at 255-3570 or email Carosa at [email protected].