Letter to the Editor: How to fix broken student organizations | The Triangle

Letter to the Editor: How to fix broken student organizations

On September 23, an opinion piece was published in The Triangle that focused on frustrations felt by a student organization leader on campus. I read the article and immediately began to think about our student leaders, the expectations they have for their organizations and the resources Drexel University has to support them.

In my role as assistant vice president for Student Life, one of the areas that I work with is our team at the Office of Campus Engagement. Campus engagement includes our fraternity and sorority community, our more than 400 student organizations, student leadership development and our large scale programs and traditions.

As professional staff members, campus engagement works to build a culture of student involvement through active participation and working together with students, staff and faculty across campus.

Over the course of the last year, campus engagement has worked diligently with our campus partners to realign and make improvements to our processes so that student organizations have a more seamless and positive experience.

In each case, changes of protocol have been influenced by the voices of our student leaders. We hear you and want to support you in developing the best possible version of your organization. With this in mind, Student Life, in partnership with the Student Activity Fee Allocation Committee and the Undergraduate Student Government Association, will be holding a forum Nov. 9 at 6 p.m. in the hospitality suite of the Daskalakis Athletic Center to answer questions and address any concerns you may have.

We believe that involvement in a student organization can make the difference in a student’s connection to the university and ability to be successful after college. Because of this firmly held belief, we introduced Building Organizations Leadership Development to provide resources, education and networking opportunities to all student organization members and leaders. BOLD was designed specifically in response to feedback provided by student organization leaders and focuses on helping students navigate the complexities of being a student leader.

In addition, Campus Engagement has worked closely with our partners in Campus Services to establish a new process for student organizations to host events on campus. Student leaders are now able to submit one form through Dragon Link that will capture all of their event planning details and allow for a faster turnaround on space reservations. We have also assigned a professional staff member to each student organization in an effort to provide better customer service to our groups.

Campus Engagement works to enhance pride and tradition while fostering a great sense of community. We do this through our work supporting campus-wide events like homecoming, University City 5K and Dragon Days.

We have also worked closely with the USGA to restructure so as to provide better channels of communication between students and commit to being one university.

If you cannot attend the forum Nov. 9, we welcome the opportunity to meet with you at any time. Please contact me directly or visit one of my colleagues in the Student Organization Resource Center, located in the lower level of Creese Student Center.