Jenna Little
Copy Desk Editor
The new office of Student Engagement is currently in the process of creating and finalizing a new student-run programming board. The board is titled Green Terror Productions and will also include its own logo which is being designed by a graphic design student at McDaniel.
For some students the programming board may seem similar to prior existing CAPBOARD, which was run by the former College Activities Office.
The board will be completely student driven. The goal of the board is to see what students want to do, what they are interested in, and what they haven’t seen but would like to see in the future on campus. According to Director of the Student Engagement Office, Christine Workman, the new board will “give students the opportunity to have a voice about what happens on campus and really make a difference.”
The board will also be beneficial to students because it provides students with skills and experience in event planning, budget negotiation, and contracting.
The Student Engagement Office’s Assistant Director Lindsey Henderson be to advise and guide students on the programming board. Henderson has not started her position as assistant director yet, but she will begin her work at McDaniel College on Monday, November 29.
The structure and process for how the student-run board will work and be run is still being worked out. According to Workman, there will be a core group that will make up an executive board. There have already been eight or nine students who have showed great interest in getting involved in the leadership for the board. The students will meet in the near future to decide on the structure for the executive board and along with what committees there will be. Students interested in getting involved can contact the office at studentengagement@mcdaniel.edu.
Workman also said that the board will start to be active and begin meeting on campus this upcoming spring semester. The spring weekend programs have already been created and additional activities will be added when the programming board begins.
Some of the upcoming activities include a behind the scenes tour at the National Aquarium, a Super Bowl party on campus, Liberty Mountain Ski Resort trip, Jersey Boys Broadway play at the Hippodrome, and a day in D.C.
The board is already getting student attention and interest. According to Beth Gerl, Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students, programming boards that plan and make decisions on student activities at other schools is in high demand and usually becomes one of the top things that students want to get involved in.
Gerl says that she believes that Student Engagement Office and Green Terror Productions “has the potential to evolve into something bigger and that needs to be student run. Why wouldn’t students want to get involved?” The board will provide students with great learning experiences and will help them build skills that they can apply to any job.
Last year CAPBOARD made decisions on activities. Mara Seibert, who was involved with CAPBOARD’s Cultural Arts committee which was in charge of planning the previous bus trips to New York City and Baltimore was one of the 37 undergraduate students who were involved last year in CAPBOARD’s committees that included Main stage, Second Stage, Films, Cultural Arts, Promotions, and Special Events.
The students did everything from helping set up events to introducing performers, cleaning up at the events, hanging up fliers, and most importantly the students themselves were in charge of selecting the events and voting. Mitch Alexander, the former Director of the College Activities Office, helped the students with creating the fliers or banners, contracting the performers and processing the checks for the performers but the actual decisions were all student made.
Seibert says “CAPBOARD was in my opinion collaboration between the students and Mitchell Alexander. He did a great job in finding out a lot of possible options and encouraging us to find more before we discussed them and picked the best.”
Seibert got involved with CAPBOARD because she really wanted to have a hand in the decision making of campus activities, specifically the arts and be able to give her input on what activities she thought students would like to see on campus. She said that in the committees they were able to get the opinion of all those involved with SGA to help as a way to reach the student population.
Gerl says that in the past, there have been some suggestions for the need for a student-run board and that some students would like to see more stuff on campus. The main idea and most important part of the board will be that it will be student-run where students can make decisions and decide what they want to do.
Seibert along with other students are excited yet still curious as to how the new programming board will work but looks forward to seeing what events will be selected, and says that “at this point it’s more waiting to see what happens and what they do!”
