This morning we visited a vibrant epicenter of campus life at Morgan State University. This is one place where it’s clear that students really are put first at every level of the organization. SIgnage, employment opportunities, and programming all emphasize this mission. In speaking with staff we heard again and again, “We do it for the students; they’re the reason we’re here.”

A relatively new building (2006), the student center has very few white walls; rather, a sunny yellow atrium welcomes visitors and red fabric-covered, green-tiled, and wood-paneled walls can be found elsewhere in the facility. The building houses a theater, a 1500-capacity ballroom, and an amazing self-operated bookstore. One small detail we liked were the silver Venetian blinds in office spaces.

In addition to the building itself, I was really impressed by the scope and variety of programs coordinated through the student activities office:

• Two movies are shown daily in the theater and are free to students
• Respective (popular) clubs for men and women offer etiquette and career skills training
• The game room hosts a billiards league
• Student-managed promotions are displayed on the televisions throughout the building
• The activities staff manages homecoming and commencement
• They also advise the university’s 65 clubs and organizations’ programs, including a new activities board started last year 

Food service, the information desk, the copy center, and the bookstore are primarily staffed by full-time professionals, allowing student employees to serve in other capacities. Overwhelmingly, all of these professional staff knew about ACUI and were warm and welcoming. It was wonderful!

We’ve spent the rest of the day stopping at nonmember schools Goucher College, Coppin State, and Loyola College. Tonight’s banquet at the University of Maryland-College Park’s Stamp Student Union will kick off the Region 4 conference. It’s somewhat bittersweet that by tomorrow evening we’ll be headed home. It will be nice not to be sleeping in a different place every night, but I would go on another trip like this one in a heartbeat. I encourage anyone working on a campus to spend a couple of hours on regular basis visiting another union or activities department; there is no substitute for what you can learn being on site talking to staff and students about how and why they do what they do.

Today’s campus visits will put us over 1,000 miles driven on this trip. As I look back on the trip, as well as the planning of the trip, it is hard for me to remember what I knew as opposed to what I have learned over the past week. I know the knowledge I have gained puts me in a far greater place of understanding, a place that seemed so distant a short time ago.

Not coming from a higher education background, I struggled to grasp what it is that ACUI offers to its members. I memorized the materials and studied the statistics, but being a very analytical person, I needed to know why before I could fully understand it. This week has enabled me to see firsthand the daily operations of student unions. I have seen the student interactions, the learning that takes place, and the community being built on campuses all over the northeast. I have listened to students and professionals describe the reasons they chose to work in this field. It is the relationships they build, the ability to give back, and the extremely rewarding feeling they have at the end of each and every day.

It is because of these people and the people on every college campus that will keep the profession alive and well for many years to come. I am glad I was able to experience all the events that you have read about in this blog over the past week. It has truly been an eye-opening experience, and one that will help me grow as a professional as well.

I am happily covered in Old Bay seasoning at the moment. Since we flew into Baltimore last week, I’ve been craving seafood. More specifically, I’ve been wanting to peel and eat crab. Today I got my wish, eating at Crack Pot, where they covered the table with brown paper and let me smash six crabs with a mallet. There was literally a half-inch-thick coating of Old Bay on each crab. I went through a pile of paper napkins (not very sustainable, I know), yanking off legs, heads, and lungs to get to the crab meat. When I was done, I had to brush off a layer of seasoning from my legs, sweater, face, and hands. It was great! i ❤ Maryland!

When we scheduled our route for this trip, we definitely wanted to visit a variety of institution types. We figured that each campus is different, and so its union or activities would also be unique. While we’ve certainly found commonalities and differences among institutions, one of the most surprising discoveries has been in the diversity of organizational structures and philosophies.

There has been no obvious model or specific mission for public/private institutions nor schools of similar size, region, or Carnegie classification. Some report to a dean of students or vice president of student affairs, others to a chief financial officer, some to a director of auxiliary services. Many have divided structures in how space is allocated and managed. In terms of mission, some campuses have service centers as college unions, others focus on being a host for events, and others want to be a lab for experiential learning.

Today we visited the Frist Campus Center at Princeton. Unlike most Ivy League institutions, Princeton has a union and manages scheduling and initiates collaborative programs. Sometimes “campus centers” are thought to be conference services-driven, but Frist focuses on the cocurricular experience and has an advisory board like a traditional college union. The building houses many academic spaces (including a wonderfully old-fashioned lecture hall where Einstein once taught) as well as other non-student affairs offices, which are managed separately from the Frist staff. However, Frist still oversees those spaces’ custodial services and maintenance without a designated rental agreement/fee like other campuses might have for such spaces. Frist also is the only building at Princeton that is funded by/reports to central administration. It also self-operates its food outlets, including a sustainable foods cafe, featuring organic and free range foods and constructed with recycled materials (including cabinetry made from sunflower seed shells).

Late this afternoon we met with staff and students in the campus life department at Towson University. There, the union does not have a traditional “union director.” Instead, the director of auxiliary services manages the retail and food outlets, scheduling is another arm, and the Campus Activities Board and student government are advised through the office of campus life. However, all these offices are located within the union, as is a beautifully renovated multicultural center. For this union, the focus is more on entertaining and social programming and it benchmarks event attendance and participant satisfaction.

Some surprises have been unions that do not have student employment opportunities, schools that are legislatively limited to hiring work-study students, and other schools that empower students in ways that might beyond many institutions’ comfort levels.

It’s also interesting how schools benchmark. Some do not place importance on benchmarking, but most unions and activities programs seem to see the value of benchmarking. What’s interesting is that peer institutions for academic programs are not always the same as what makes sense for student affairs. For example, while the scope differs, it was remarkable how similar programming at Princeton and at Suffolk County Community College were in the ways they emphasize ties to academics. I’m not sure the extent to which upper-level adminstrators determine the institutions used for peer benchmarking on a given campus, but certainly new professionals and mid-level staff have opportunities to learn from campuses they might never expect.

Next we’re headed to the largest institution on our tour–University of Maryland-College Park–and the Region 4 conference.

I am a World of Warcraftjunkie. There. I said it. It feels good to get that out there. For those who aren’t in the know about the goodness that is WoW, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). In a nutshell, it is a PC video game in which players from all over the world can connect online to save the races of Azerothfrom the oppressive forces of undead legions and demonic being. Over 11 million people currently play World of Warcraft and, in my opinion, this is something we should ALL be doing.

At midnight this morning, a new expansion (essentially new content) was released for the game. I told Jason and Liz that they had to go with me to a midnight release party so I could get my copy (think of the Harry Potter release events I know many of you went to or coordinated). While we didn’t actually go, they were good sports, Jason even going as far as calling the local Best Buy in Trenton to see if they were open for the event. However, if you were up at midnight this morning and near any video game store or retail center that sells video games, there were undoubtedly people in line for the expansion.

While video games are certainly becoming more accessible and mainstream, there is still a subculture of students on college campuses that have strong ties to video games and their intrinsic escape from real life. With the onset of MMORPGs, however, video games have added a new dimension to them as a community builder. When I log on to Warcraft, I know I will “see” a familiar face. I play with the same 6-8 players that I have for over a year and a half (Hi <Water Tribe>!). Together we have learned how to work together, each completing our specific roles base on our individual skills to reach a common goal. Beyond that, I have come to consider them good, personal friends. Additionally, I use Warcraft as a way to keep in touch with two of my younger brothers who live in Utah. We have conversations about real life issues while running around killing giant spiders and dragons that we wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to do.

Many times during the course of my work at ACUI, and my time working at Indiana University, I have heard student affairs staff bemoan the influx of video games on the college campus. Their reasons are well intentioned; part of the college experience certainly involves learning how to interact with your peers and video game playing is often seen as hiding in your residence hall room behind a screen. In some extreme cases, personal safety and hygiene become part of their concern. But I can attest to the fact that there is more than meets the eye going on in the world of video games.

Video games will become more integrated into student life in the future.  If the college union is truly the living room of campus, then we need to make sure that we are serving our entire populations and not just the majority. ACUI, its member institutions, and college union/student activities professionals, I believe, have a strong history of reaching a welcoming arm out to student populations who might otherwise go undernoticed and underserved. Our relationship with organizations like College Bowland ACUI’s recreation and leisure activities programs are good examples of this.

Philadelphia University has set up the “Wii Lounge” in the student center to give students and opportunity to play games and be social at the same time. Suffolk County Community College–Ammerman has designated a portion of their food service common area as a gaming area and has provided everything from a poker table to multiple gaming systems for student use. These two campuses are not alone in their efforts either – many campuses are responding to the call to acknowledge the role of gaming in student life and to work with the movement, not against it.

The Long Island portion of our trip started with breakfast at the Residence Inn listening to a salesman give a very inspiring, motivational speech to a new employee. We then drove to Hofstra University where we took a self-guided tour of the student center and a portion of the campus grounds.

The next stop was Suffolk County Community College – Ammerman. Sharon Silverstein (Chickie) had just finished particpating in their Veteran’s Day program. Medallions were installed that honored veterans from all American wars. She showed us her building and the area surrounding it where students gathered to talk, study, relax, and play an occasional game of ultimate frisbee.

The final visit of the day was at Stony Brook University where we were treated to a tour of the Student Activities Center before we had a very engaging conversation with a large group of students and professionals. They expressed their thoughts on how rewarding the work they do is and how much they encourage others to get involved. We then sat down with the Dean of Students. We ended our stop with a tour of the older union building.

We met Chickie for dinner before driving to South Brunswick. We drove from one side of Manhattan around the north side to the other, seeing the city from all angles. We even drove past Newark airport. Very exciting. Very exciting indeed.

The road trip is heading into its final days, but there is still much to see. We will start the day tomorrow by visiting Princeton. We end the day in Baltimore to attend the Region 4 conference. Until then…

About the schools we’ve visited…

1. Student leaders and student employees alike take great pride in their workand institution. They say their primary benefits of involvement are “meeting people” and “being in the know about programs on campus.”
2. Each institutional structure is different, and some do not value cross-campus collaboration or student empowerment.
3. Some current challenges on campuses we’ve visited include: need for more space, students’ lack of civility/respect for the facility, antiquated funding strategies, and impatient consumer mindset among students.
4. Trends among students we’ve spoken with include: desire to get involved as a way to “give back” to the school or community, concern about the environment, technological savvy that facilities and programs are struggling to accommodate, and interest in being involved in many student organizations instead of focusing their leadership on just one.
5. Students, even those working closely with professional advisors, do not clearly identify the union and activities field as a career path.

About the trip itself…

1. The Northeast has a ton of mattress stores. Every strip mall seems to feature a Sleepy’s.
2. Paint markers are not as easy to use as one might suppose; the paint comes out gloppy at first.
3. Zack has a lot of show tunes on his iPod. A lot.
4. Jason likes to have a plan and dislikes clutter (particularly in the backseat).
5. During long drives, I am good at sleeping in the backseat, but not much else.

This experience has been both fun and educational. There is no substitute for visiting with campus professionals and students in their own environment. I’m grateful to everyone we’ve met for being so welcoming and teaching me so much.

It’s a few minutes before midnight, which means it is time once again for my daily blog post. We just returned from Manhattan where we saw “Spring Awakening.” The show was Liz’s suggestion because she saw it on “90210” when they did it for the school production. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to think heading into it, but I was completely amazed by the performance. We searched frantically for a place to eat before the show since we had less then an hour, but we managed to find a market-type store that served fresh everything that was on the same block as the theatre. After the show, we stopped at the tourist favorite, Roxy’s, to have dessert. Because we couldn’t all agree on one item, we ended up ordering two enormous slices of cheesecake and a plateful of brownie a la mode.

The day started off with a visit to Albertus Magnus. Members of the student government awoke early to meet with us before heading off to class. Erin, who oversees campus activities (and everything else from the sounds of it), was very gracious to host us. Not only was breakfast made available upon our arrival, but she spent time speaking to us on camera, took us on a tour of the facility, and gifted us with numerous Albertus Magnus items.

From there, we headed to Yale where Liz and Zack made purchases at the bookstore before we headed to the world’s largest gymnasium to meet with the Director of Club Sports. Yale is an active participant in ACUI clay targets recreation tournaments. We then drove to Bridgeport to board the ferry that would take us to Long Island. We quickly checked in to our hotel in order to catch the next train into the city where our story began.

Tomorrow (today, now that it is just past midnight), we will catch up with members from the Region 3 conference at their respective schools. We are still having some trouble uploading video, but will continue to try to add as much as we can. We have uploaded the latest pictures for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

What an eventful day! Yesterday morning Pete Eraca took us around the Culinary Institute. We discovered that CIA students love playing dodgeball in the student recreation center, participating in an annual chili cook-off contest, and working out after gaining the Freshman 45!

It smelled delicious everywhere, and we got special behind-the-scenes access to see students learning about gastronomy, making breads and pastries, and attending student orientation. Because of the three-week-cycle schedule of coursework, Pete and his team are almost always planning an orientation program or graduation. We got to see the student recreation center, which is the campus’s college union, and toured academic buildings and residence halls. CIA doesn’t have student fees; its activities funding comes from gratuity included on meals at its six restaurants (more about that later).

In the afternoon we met the student leaders and staff of the Marist College Student Center. Everyone was so welcoming! Two student building managers (Victoria and Jared) led a tour of the facility, which was as impressive as the students were in their knowledge and pride of their campus. 

The building houses nearly everything a Marist student might need–health services, two residence halls, admissions, dining, student media, music and performance space, academic classrooms, student org offices, and meeting space. With all of these services, one of the center’s challenges is space–for storage and new programs they would like to offer.

After our tour, we met with the programming board. Even though some of them literally just started in their positions last week, it was easy to see the passion they have for their role on campus and the “family” at Marist.

Marist has hosted many before-they-were-famous performers, but annually one of its most popular events is a dance competition among its own students. They need to have multiple performances in the union’s 330-capacity theater to accommodate the crowds.

Meetings of the campus ministry organization also are held in this theater and need to be held multiple times as about 10 percent of the student body participates.

Not only was everyone gracious, there seems to be a pervasive understanding of personal responsibility among students. For instance, the student government held a forum last year about not saying hurtful things about people online.

It was a wonderful visit, and we appreciate everyone taking the time to meet with us, especially Bob, Michelle, and Jen.

Last night Zack and I took Jason out for his birthday dinner at the CIA’s Italian restaurant. It was the first night of students’ front-of-the-house rotation, so they seemed a bit nervous, but the food was great. We all tasted each other’s meals, and my personal favorites were my chestnut flan and Jason’s pumpkin-stuffed ravioli.

Now we’re in New Haven, Conn., so we’ll have posts about Albertus Magnus and Yale later today!