MOORHEAD – Tired of scouring Concordia’s website just to find the day’s lunch menu? Well, the Office of Student Engagement has just the solution for you!
This year the Office of Student Engagement has launched a new platform for students, Cobber Connect, which serves as an easy-to-use student life platform for Concordia students, faculty and staff.
There are a plethora of amenities available, including links to Concordia platforms, a list of on-campus clubs and groups and a masterlist of events happening around campus.
Cobber Connect is not Concordia’s first try at a student life platform. In 2016, the ConcoLife app served a similar purpose. The ConcoLife app fell out of use during the pandemic when there weren’t many campus events going on.
This past summer, a group from the Office of Student Engagement, led by the office’s assistant dean of students and director of student engagement Nathalie Rinehardt, began brainstorming ideas for a new app to replace ConcoLife.
The Office of Student Engagement was looking for a type of program that would allow them to schedule future events and have groups.
“One of our main responsibilities is student organizations and all of the student events,” Rinehardt said, “So we started shopping around for products with that in mind.”
The Office of Student Engagement settled on purchasing the Cobber Connect program from Campus Groups, a platform that powers student life apps from over 260 colleges and universities. It was then customized with Concordia’s colors and slogans.
“(The Cobber Connect program) seemed to fit our goals best,” Rinehardt said.
The platform is still a work in progress. Many students have yet to download the app and many student organizations are still working on setting up their club profiles.
Rinehardt is confident that with the help of Concordia’s student leaders that Cobber Connect will be a success.
“They (student leaders) will put out more content as the year goes,” she said.
