By Corinne Schmidt
MOORHEAD- Campus Events Commission (CEC) has kicked off this school year with community building activities. They’ve had over nine events this year and are not slowing down.
CEC is an organization run by students for students. They plan about 80% of all student events on campus, funded through each student’s activity fee. It is made up of 5 committees: community engagement, special events, showcase, recreation and digital marketing.
Community engagement focuses specifically on wellness, volunteering, and community building. Their lead commissioner is Chloe Ingvaldson, she leads a committee of about 10 people and plans all of the community engagement events about two times per month.
CEC’s year began at Cobb Hobnob and Cobber Expo, where they started implementing QR codes and punch cards.
Students can submit feedback and recommendations of events to the CEC through their QR codes or Instagram. They also implemented punch cards so if students attend eight CEC events, they win a prize.
To find out about the events on campus, students can look around for posters that are updated every Sunday or Cobber Connect always has the latest. Their digital marketing team also updates Instagram regularly.
Students can look forward to October as it is filled with great bonding events like card making for Eventide on Oct. 6, positivity pumpkins on the 13th, trivia on the 16th, and a Halloween Bash on the 30th with face paint, contests, and trick-or-treating.
There is a lot of work behind the scenes to make campus a greater place to be.
“A lot of issues with set up and light, sounds, spaces, but usually those are quick fixes. On a larger scale, different years have different levels of participation and engagement from campus…sometimes our freshman class is very excited…and other times they’re more apathetic, but we adjust,” said Andrina Rockstad, lead commissioner of the CEC.
Some events are more popular with the student body, and some are not. Rockstad pointed out that less performance-based events do better like bingo. The commission measures their success through attendance which is why many well-loved events are repeated.
“If students show up and they are excited to participate in an event then I’m like I did my job. I want people to enjoy my events,” said Ingvaldson.
CEC also collaborates with many organizations on campus. Recently, on Sept. 15th and 19th, they did a Just Dance night with Cobber Dance Club and a vision board making night with Cobber Crafts.
“Collaborations are very important. We have a very large budget, and we want to make sure that we’re sharing the love while helping other campus organizations. We usually plan it together and split the cost in a way that makes sense. We’ll often donate supplies afterwards to the club like with Cobber Crafts. We help each other out,” Rockstad said.
Everyone is encouraged to come to every event but also, if you want to be a part of CEC, there will be applications and interviews starting second semester. There is room to work from a committee member to a commissioner and make a difference.
“There are a lot of opportunities for engagement,” said Rockstad.
