Students often complain that on-campus events are scheduled at inconvenient times. As a member of a student organization, I wanted to give a behind the scenes look at how and why organizations plan events at certain times, and why events on campus are beneficial for everyone.
I am a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority and have experience in planning events for my sorority, the National Pan-Hellenic council, which includes eight Greek organizations. When we plan events, the first thing that we have to take into account is our own schedules — there would be no event if no one was there to host it.
All members of Greek life are required to be full-time students, so events are often planned around our class and work schedules. When we plan events during the day, we assume the time most of us do not have class is also the time that the majority of students do not have class. This is often around lunch or right before dinner, in between afternoon and evening classes.
We also take into consideration the amount of traffic the event needs. Tabling in the Rhatigan Student Center during lunch, whether that be for information or fundraising, is beneficial because that is the time with the largest number of people. Students are either passing through on their way to class or stopping to grab lunch and may have a few minutes to spare.
Cas Curtis, the president of the Student Activities Council, said SAC also bases its events on the availability of the members of their organization.
“We aim to accommodate as many students as possible, looking for common times of availability, and fitting it with the type of event we are hosting,” Curtis said. “We also look to other events scheduled by other groups to avoid overlapping schedules.”
Curtis also said that because of the number of organizations we have on campus, who often want to use the RSC, it is beneficial to make sure that events do not overlap.
Organizations are taking students into account when they are scheduling events and truly do their best to make sure that as many people can come as possible. Without engaging with students, we lose out on funding to have future events. Even if you can’t make it to every event in the RSC, I encourage the students at Wichita State to take advantage of the ones that you can make it to.
