Two Become One: Student Engagement

(Vista/Archive)
The offices of Campus Activities and Fraternity and Sorority Life have combined their staff and office space to officially become Student Engagement to better serve student organizations and programs at the University of Central Oklahoma.
“We have been functioning as one unit under the same director since June 2014, but this year we were able to do some physical office shuffling that allowed us to truly combine to one staff and one title,” said Kay Robinson, senior director of Student and Community Engagement.
Unofficially, the offices have been Student Engagement since January 2017, but officially switched Jan. 2, 2018, after approval from Vice President for Student Affairs, Myron Pope.
“Because we have been acting as one office for so long, [switching] was actually pretty easy,” Robinson said. “We just need to get new signage.”
Robinson said the main difference would be the physical space on the Nigh University Center’s fourth floor and a unified website. Four staff members were moved to help blend the offices, which had separate spaces until renovations began late last year.
The Fraternity and Sorority Life space was converted from two offices and a cubicle to three full wall offices and space for graduate assistants.
“It took away the ‘Campus Activities’ and ‘Fraternity and Sorority Life’ offices and made a Student Engagement office,” Robinson said.
Despite the physical changes, the programs, advisers and leadership opportunities will not change.
“Everyone will still have their same responsibilities, which already included some crossover with major campus programs,” Robinson said.
One change that is still in the works is combining the councils that allocate funding to programs and organizations.  Currently, the Campus Activities Council and Fraternity and Sorority Life Council are separate and would have to be changed by the UCO Student Association.
“We are proposing to UCOSA, at their next council change, to combine CAC and FSLC into one council, but we aren’t there yet,” Robinson said. “The change may not come until the [2019-2020] academic year.”
The office now oversees large campus programs including Homecoming, WinterGlow, New Broncho Orientation and BronchoThon, as well as student organizations such as the Student Programming Board and Men’s Programming Board.  Also included are the Inter-Fraternity Council, Unified Greek Council, National Pan-Hellenic and Panhellenic councils that oversee Greek life.

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