This fall, Student Life increased the number of events they put on, in order to create a community space on campus and promote student engagement.
According to Cambree Lovesy, senior lounge leader for Student Life, the increase in events is due in part to redesigning the Student Life lounge. The student lounge moved from what is now the Pride Centre into the old Student Life area over the summer, and with this transition, Student Life brought in more programming.
“We found that there was a lack of activities for students to have to just relax between classes and be able to socialize and meet new people,” Lovesy said. “The new lounge and the new space has allowed for more programming like that to happen.”
On any given weekday, the Student Life lounge now hosts at least two events per day — including both regularly occurring weekly events, such as Ted Talk Tuesdays and Movie Night Fridays, and one-time events like pumpkin carving or making your own flipbook.
“We have anywhere from two to five events per day,” Lovesy said. “In the old lounge space we would have informal events, but not a lot. It was just kind of whenever events came up or specific departments wanted to do something, but it wasn’t a regular schedule like this.”
Student Life’s goal with the new events is to increase engagement and feelings of community on campus. With the aspiration of bringing together students in different departments who would not normally interact, Student Life seeks to foster new connections amongst students.
Mallory Manley, coordinator of student transition and engagement, said on the push for more events in Student Life that in addition to creating more community on campus, they are trying to demonstrate that this could be a vibrant campus, but providing more events for students is necessary to accomplish this.
“I think there is definitely a need for a community space and a greater feeling of community at UFV. This is here to foster new friendships, to foster those relationships being built, those connections. It’s also here to be a safe space for all students, and just to give people a break between classes,” Lovesy said. “We know that midterms and finals get super stressful, and we’re here to just be that fun place you can come to let go of all your worries and your stresses.”
Many of the events in Student Life have the stress of students in mind: there is free hot chocolate and colouring every Thursday, and relaxing crafts for “Wellness Wednesdays.” As well, Student Life’s push for community can be seen in their events like DiversiTea, a partnered event with UFV International to learn about and share different cultures over cups of tea.
The new Student Life events are proposed by lounge leaders, and take in the input of other students. According to Manley, the lounge leaders come up with proposals at the beginning of the semester for events they would like to put on, and senior lounge leaders work on the proposals with students and other lounge leaders to ensure the best time to host events with students’ schedules.
“[The student lounge leaders] all have one thing in common, which is that they want to create community,” Manley said. “It’s hard to just go up to a group of students who are studying and be like ‘Hey do you want to do a puzzle with me?’ or ‘We’re about to do this cool event, with paints, do you want to join in?’ So definitely they need energy, they need to have this interest in building community and making connections.”
Image: Nadia Tudhope/The Cascade
