Two years ago, a room was christened. That room was designed to foster collaboration and communication between student organizations. Groups traded roomy offices in Faunce for cubicles in the Bernhard Center with a promise of greater events and working together for a brighter future of student life.
People sit at their cubicles, doing office work that isn’t all that different from Faunce. I wonder if all of us, the student leaders, put too much faith in a room and didn’t do our part fostering collaboration. That led me to Presidential Summit.
And hopefully, Tuesday, 27 September, will bring about the changes hoped for two years ago.
Normally, this segment would highlight student organizations and introduce them to a wider audience of potential members. Today, things are a little different. While it might be characterized fairly as shameless self-promotion, I much prefer thinking of it as spotlighting an organization of organizations.
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residential Summit, a name coined by co-founder and OUTspoken President Matthew Vargo, is a collection of student leaders: the heads of every RSO that is willing to be a part of it. The purpose is simple, to discover new ways organizations can work together, promote one another and create the best community environment on any campus in America.
Meeting once a month, originations like those already pledged to attend (Drive-Safe Kalamazoo, OUTspoken, HerCampus, and others) will share their missions, resources, and goals with others and find new and inventive ways to function together to create a more communal student organization system at Western Michigan University.
Presidential Summit was born out of research into an older idea, the President’s Student Advisory Committee, commonly PSAC, which collected heads of RSOs to report to administration on issues pertaining to student affairs. While things like Vice-President Diane Anderson’s Student Affairs Advisory Council and WSA’s Student Affairs Committee serve that function, the idea of assembling presidents inspired co-founders Vargo and myself to a different mission.
The hope is that by assembling people who can speak on behalf of their organizations and have extensive knowledge of their operations, Presidential Summit can orchestrate some impressive, innovative, and interesting cross-promotion and collaboration that will exist for years to come.
Presidential Summit will meet Tuesday, 27 September at 5pm in the Conference Room of the Student Organization Center.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at WMU chapter.