As my time in Her Campus comes to an end (I write holding back tears), I decided to reflect on my time as Events Chair for Her Campus ISU. In part to embark on some wisdom, as well as highlighting the wonderful organization that is HC ISU.
For this article, I thought I’d take you through an event-by-event deep dive.
Going into my role, I was very focused on community building. I wanted the chapter members to be able to get to know each other outside of the standard meeting. I also wanted to create a space to allow other organizations to get involved with Her Campus.
October 2025: The Pumpkin Paint
My first event, the Pumpkin Paint social, was a member-only event. Attendees got together to paint mini pumpkins with acrylic paint. I wanted to create an easygoing space at the first meeting. Giving people a way to meet up and get to know each other while they do a craft. Craft and art-based events are actually believed to increase collaboration in general, whether it is working on an art project together or simply sharing paint on a paper plate.
November 2025: Friendsgiving
As Event Chair, I wanted to help spread recognition of Her Campus on the ISU campus. One strategy was to reach out to similar RSOs. ISU has a fashion magazine called “Sequin”. We had some member overlap, and since Her Campus and Sequin were magazine-based organizations, we thought we should work together. I was able to coordinate a Friendsgiving event with the Sequin president. We got snacks, played games, and turned on the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Episode. We were also able to show off one of our HCM PR gifts, Valentino samples, which were a hit!
A personal touch I added to the event was making a “guest book”. On a poster, I drew a giant book and wanted to have all attendees sign the book. This was a cute photo op and a great way to recognize everyone who came to support this event! To all campus event planners, I highly recommend making connections with your other campus groups!
February 2026: Galentines
February served as the first month in semester 2 that Her Campus could put on events. With the start of the new semester, Her Campus is also in a recruiting stage. We attend campus events like “Winter Fest,” where all the campus RSOs promote themselves with booths. Of course, the goal of this is to get your group name out there and find new members.
I decided to hold an “open event”. We would often get questions from non-members asking if they could come to HC events, so I figured, why not create an event that is designed to be open to the public? “Galentines Day” was coming up, and I thought this was the perfect time to center a new event around.
We held a movie night social, open to the whole campus. Members were encouraged to bring friends, and we promoted this event heavily. This event was a really fun one to set up, because it was so different from past events. The opening to the public added a new layer of pressure, but I enjoyed finding pink table cloths, plates, napkins, etc (Bonus: the event was after Valentine’s Day so I got to buy supplies on clearance!) We ended up having a fun time watching To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and making Galentines Day Cards.
March 2026: Patchwork & Perfume
After a public event like the Galentines Day Movie Night, I wanted to refocus on member bonding. One of my members is a Campus Trendsetter and was getting a shipment of the Valentino Purple Melancholia Eau de Parfum samples. I quickly joined forces to create an event to hand these perfumes out as well as get some fun content. We settled on a patchwork event. Members would bring in shirts or bags that they wanted to add a patchwork design to. I made a “Her Campus” shirt. To match with the Valentino samples, I got purple fabric patches. We had a clear color scheme, which was great for promotional and social media! Once again, the craft theme allowed members to talk while still working on their own projects. This was a fun night of listening to music and helping create some social media content with our members.
Looking ahead:
In the last few weeks of the school year, I wanted to celebrate Her Campus as much as possible! I have one more social event in store, plus our end-of-year party.
Our April event will be centered around attending an ISU Baseball game with the ISU Romance book club, Redbirds Reading Romance. We’re hoping to tie in the theme of “sport romance” and hopefully get an event-related article published! The book club girls are very interactive, and I think it’ll be a fun group! It’s a great way to get involved with our school as we support our athletes and work with another group!
Finally, we’ll have our end-of-the-year party. This is always a little bittersweet, especially with this being my last semester at ISU. But as Events Chair, I want to do everything in my power to make this event special. We plan to make flower bouquets. Each member will bring their own batch of flowers, and then we’ll arrange them into individual bouquets. At the end of the event, the girls will leave with a flower from every member in their bouquets. I’m hoping this will be a sentimental gift. We’ll also have our senior send-off, where Her Campus members will get their graduation cords.
During my time as Events Chair, I’ve wanted to raise awareness for Her Campus at ISU and create a fun environment for our current members. This is such a great organization, and I always want our members to have a good experience. If my event can make someone feel more comfortable or involved, that’s all I need! It has truly been an honor to get more involved in my Her Campus Chapter. I’d highly recommend it! I joined Her Campus as a way to get out of my shell, and I have really loved my time in this club.