Of the UCCS student population, campus data shows that 88% are commuter students. Catering campus life to a commuter campus presents unique challenges, according to Student Life officials.
Director of Student Engagement Noelle San Souci and Student Activities Assistant Courtney Smith have been brainstorming different ways to hurdle the barriers that prevent commuter engagement on campus, and commuters themselves have mixed feelings about engaging on campus.
Focus on academics keeps students busy
Some commuter students don’t have any intention of engaging with campus life, as they are very focused on their academics.
“As a mechanical engineering student, you have a lot of compounding work … If I’m not on campus, I’m at home doing homework,” said Cameron Baker, a junior mechanical engineering student who commutes to campus.
While Baker was involved in his high school, once he got to college, his focus shifted to his academics as he looked for more educational opportunities to secure his future.
“School is very much the main focus for me right now … I need to sit down. I need to look at possible internships, who’s hiring, what’s going on in Handshake (a career platform that connects students to employers) … If I push off school, and start to decline in that aspect, then other goals just can’t get achieved,” he said.
Baker said that he gets frequent emails about engineering-oriented events like talks and career fairs, and he tends to go to them more than ones hosted by Student Life.
Director of Student Engagement, Noelle San Souci still sees this as a win, noting that student engagement can still be academically oriented.
“Those students that are here academically may find engagement outside the classroom by joining an academic club … a lot of times, through those clubs, they can get connected to an advisor that can connect them to internships, and maybe they’re not seeing that as engagement … but that is a win,” San Souci said.
Marketing events is an uphill battle for Student Life
Baker mentioned that other than engineering events, his email is cluttered with assignment notifications, professor announcement postings and pay sheet approvals from the university.
Because of this influx of school information mixed with emails about campus happenings, he typically skims over them.
San Souci said getting the word out to commuter students about what’s going on on-campus is another uphill battle. She mentioned that sometimes departments fight for the attention of students.
“We want to make sure [departments are] not competing … sometimes you get into meetings, like ‘Oh, you were doing a Friendsgiving? … We’re all doing Friendsgiving,’ and there’s five Friendsgivings next week,” San Souci said.
For finding out about events, commuters have to rely on resources like Mountain Lion Connect and the Commode Chronicles, the newsletter posted inside of bathroom stalls across campus.
Emily Ng, a master’s Student studying computer science, said she likes the Commode Chronicles but mentioned that they always seem to be out of date, and it may be helpful if it were emailed out as well.
According to San Souci, Commode Chronicles is not controlled by Student Life, but rather auxiliary marketing, meaning she has to apply to put something in the flyer. San Souci described submissions to the Commode Chronicles to be almost strategic in nature, noting that there is a certain time window to submit something, and the window is first come first serve, and the events in the Commode Chronicles are always up for two weeks.
San Souci said this means that Student Life needs to choose whether they want an event to be posted two weeks early, and risk people forgetting about it, or have it up the week of the event and have half of the time that the ad is up to be lost marketing space.
The way the Commode Chronicles functions doesn’t seem to work with the quick schedule of students like Ng. “I mean, I would love to go, but they never update you in a timely fashion,” she said.
Ng did part of her Undergrad at Colorado College where she felt the school spirit was stellar and campus events were accessible for several reasons.
Firstly, she mentioned word of mouth was very strong at Colorado College. She was very engaged in clubs there and felt that she had a strong sense of community. San Souci said that the word of mouth on a small college campus like Colorado College is hard to beat but mentioned that many clubs at UCCS have formed their own hubs where campus happenings get passed around.
Ng had contact with clubs when she initially arrived at UCCS but said that they fell apart as people graduated.
The other way Ng got information about weekly happenings about Colorado College events was through a weekly digest that was emailed to students and posted on flyers and posters around campus. This is a kind of one stop shop for students, and Ng thinks it’s an efficient way to deliver information.
San Souci believes that she can implement something similar at UCCS. She said that this model has had success before at a prior institution she worked at.
“Instead of sending out a bazillion emails, everybody would submit something, and then it would be in a digest that you can see,” San Souci said.
San Souci said that this type of thing is in talks in upper administration. San Souci mentions that Student Life has their text messaging system for Student Life activities, but that there are many events on campus that occur that aren’t controlled by the department. San Souci says that the closest thing UCCS has to a one-stop shop for students is Mountain Lion Connect, but she adds that students have to make the choice to actively log on and find events themselves.
“So, how can we get everything in one place?” San Souci said. Part of that solution has been increasing marketing on online social media platforms such as Instagram because students are already on there.
Navigating a poor walkable campus with no centralized hub
Ng said the poor walkability and unclear directions at UCCS are detrimental to on-campus happenings. “I’m really interested in some things that keep happening down at the farmhouse … and I can’t find the damn place,” she said. In her time at Colorado College, Ng said students could leave campus easily and shop, or they could cover ground easily on campus to attend events.
The poor walkability of campus is a problem at UCCS that San Souci is well aware of. “If I could pick up this campus, and fold it in half and move it, I would,” she said.
San Souci thinks the best solution to this problem of traversing campus would be to form a centralized hub, which she feels like UCCS doesn’t have. She said that the space in the University Center could be used differently to cater to students, like making a commuter lounge.
San Souci acknowledged the utility of having a place for commuters to spend time in between classes instead of going home. She said this would open the door for programming that is simple and passive.
As far as navigational challenges go, San Souci says that students are heard, and that the university is trying this year to put up more signage around campus.
To skip past the issues that come with making commuters return to campus, student life has branched out to the community to host commuters at locations other than UCCS.
Student activities assistant Courtney Smith oversees commuter programming. Smith said that they are making an effort to meet commuters off campus in the community in order to better the chances of commuters finding their people through UCCS in what is supposed to be a more palatable way.
Student Life hosts a biweekly trivia night at Trinity Brewing Company where students can meet up, get food and maybe a drink for those over 21. The turnout varies, according to Smith.
“It’s kind of hit or miss … sometimes we only get a couple people, and then other times we’ll get like 20-ish or something,” Smith said.
Smith thinks they will keep doing this event, but she mentions that off campus events are tough to push for because it can mean “a lot of money for little attendance.”
Commuter lunches, held on campus, always have a good turnout according to San Souci, typically averaging over 100 participants. San Souci says that they always run out of food, a good problem to have.
Despite it all, Cameron Baker feels his lack of connection to campus is of circumstance. “I understand [being on campus] is the college experience. But ultimately … just the bias that I have that’s like, I jump over this hill, and I’m more or less home,” Baker said.
The clock tower from lot 224. Photo by Josiah Dolan.