In the last few years, under Joanne Lembo, acting director, and her predecessor Barbara James, the department has worked to give students increasing opportunities for leadership. The department is more student-driven than in the past, with many ideas coming from students themselves. Many of their suggestions are for fun events and having fun is an important emphasis here but a surprising number coordinate with other programs or are dorm events, open to the entire campus. Student activities provides plenty of guidance and advice, but students work through the process of planning events on their own. A dorm planning a dance or a club sponsoring a speaker, for instance, first checks the calendar and reserves the date, then proceeds to do much of the work needed to make the event a success.
Students find volunteer workers, secure equipment, make travel arrangements and promote the event.
Planning can be complicated, involving coordination between group or dorm members and working through what can sometimes seem like an infinite number of practical details. The experience is invaluable for learning leadership and gaining organizational skills. These include coffee houses, movies and plays, pep rallies, hiking or rock-climbing trips, dances and concerts. The office sponsors annual international and environmental days, hires entertainers, including comedians, hypnotists and magicians, and sponsors games and casino nights, debates, scavenger hunts, cookouts and more. Among other things, faculty advisers serve as a sounding board for students, helping to gauge whether or not an event will fly, teaching skills such as debating or chess, helping locate speakers and performers, mapping out the hike, driving the bus to get the groceries for the dinners, chaperoning a dance, and giving their time in dozens of other ways.