Meet the Team Working to Add Life to the Meramec Campus
BY: BRENDAN SMITH
Staff Writer
For every club event, holiday celebration and campus-wide scavenger hunt at STLCC–Meramec, there’s a team working behind the scenes to turn student ideas into reality. The Campus Life office isn’t just about planning events — it’s about helping students lead, connect and create a true sense of community on campus, said Meramec Campus Life Manager Sean Cooney.
“For planning an event run by the Student Government or Campus Activities Board, we start with the students. The students will come up with the ideas of the events, and they’ll plan the event,” Cooney said, “It’s our job to make sure the contracts get done, we order the materials, we make sure the spaces are reserved and we can ensure everything on the back end is good for them, then they get to run the event itself.”
Campus Life’s goal is to assist clubs, organizations and the students that participate in them with their events and to encourage the students to lead their own activities.
“I was impressed by Chem Club taking the reins on Trunk or Treat around Halloween. It was such a good example of a large-scale student-led event, which is what we’ve really been pushing for,” Student Activity Specialist Melody Walkenhorst said. “They brought together 10 or more clubs and invited the whole community, not just the campus, but families outside of Meramec. It ran smoothly, and it brought together so many people. I want to see a lot more of that going on.”
With activities that have no club attached to them, Campus Life attempts to use them as a way to show off parts of the campus that many students may not have visited, said Student Activity Specialist Katie Manders.
“With ‘Find Archie’ it started off showcasing different areas, and I’ve had students come up to me and say something about not knowing that we had a gallery. So, I used it to show off the gallery,” Manders said. “I wanted to showcase different areas of the campus, and I’m looking forward to showcasing new buildings for next semester.”
While the Campus Life office has on average more interactions with organizations like the Student Government and the Campus Activities Board, the office makes an effort to interact with more students and clubs on campus, said Cooney.
“We do our best to interact with as many of the clubs as possible equally, but it really comes down to who’s hosting the events and activities. That’s where our job is to help. We encourage all of the clubs to interact with us a lot. The goal is that we’re seeing all of the clubs often,” Cooney said, “We like to remind people that we’re always here to run events and create that campus community.”
According to Walkenhorst, being a part of Campus Life is also a rewarding experience and the interactions with the Meramec community make the staff feel special.
“This makes it feel like a real community, and something that I actually look forward to going to and not just checking off boxes,” Walkenhorst said. “It feels so special to get to be a part of that.”
