The first two weeks of welcoming SIU students back to school is full of activities for students to participate in and attend. These events take months of planning for SIU staff across campus. 

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“We know how important it is to get the students engaged right from the beginning, to make sure they know who their resources are, making sure they see friendly faces,” Jennifer Phillips, Director of New Student Programs, said.

The first event took place on Wednesday, August 14th and was move-in day for new students. These two events are exclusively for students who are moving into the campus dorms. After parents and family members helped their student move-in they attended “Sweet Goodbyes,” which provided sweet treats for families and students to bond over while they said their goodbyes.

“We brought back Sweet Goodbyes, which is a sweet treat that we provide through the Saluki Family Association for our families, kind of our nice way of saying, we’ve got it from here,” said Phillips.

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The “Light up the Lake” event was scheduled for the next day but due to bad weather it was rescheduled for Friday, August 16th. The event was renamed to “Glow at the Gridiron.” Originally the “Light up the Lake” event was supposed to take place at campus lake and have free food, canoeing and inflatables. 

Friday, August 16th was packed with events for SIU students; Commuter Dinner, Saluki Kick-Off Pep Rally, Dawgs Nite Out, Glow at the Gridiron, Late Night at the Rec and Late Night Pancakes with the Wesley Foundation. These events took place across campus and were open to all SIU students to attend.

The pep rally took place to introduce new students to Saluki Athletics. The event took place in the afternoon and extended into the evening with activities for students to take part in.

“For the pep rally, it’s athletic focused. So really introducing our new students to what division one athletics has to offer,” Sean Cooney, Assistant Director of the Office of Student Engagement, said. 

Departments across campus collaborated to have these events complement each other. The Office of Student Engagement, New Students Programs and Student Affairs, as well as many other departments and colleges prepared for the first two weeks of events together.

“Always it’s really focusing to make sure we’re prepped for the year,” Cooney said. “It is calling vendors, sitting down and working on calendars. I think something that I’ve been really happy with and excited about is just the collaboration across campus. We’re all really working together this year to make sure that our schedules don’t overlap, that students really have a clear path of what they can do on a day to day basis, so that collaboration is a big part of summer, and making sure that all of our events are complementing each other and we’re not over programming on top of each other.”

All of the events were advertised to students with flyers, website ads and the app Saluki Superfan. Saluki Superfan is an app that students can download that shows them events that are taking place across campus.

“They check-in, they get points and they can turn those points into my office, The Office of Student Engagement for prizes for attending events,” Cooney said.

SIU staff encouraged new and returning students to attend as many events as they could. They want students to build community within SIU and know that they have someone to turn to.

“As humans, we are social creatures, and so helping students find community right from the beginning is going to help set the stage for success, which is what we’re wanting to do,” Phillips said.

Members of SIU’s staff understand the importance of having these events for students that are coming to campus. They want SIU students to be able to form relationships with the staff from the beginning.

“It is really making sure they understand that we’re all here for them. That is, it is about them and providing those opportunities for them to get engaged to meet other students is really part of the college experience. So on top of great education is the opportunity to build those relationships, build those leadership experiences from day one and these events are critical to starting that process,” Cooney said.  

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“There is an army of staff every day that is putting in the work to make sure these programs work well,” Cooney said.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the wonderful housing and residence life staff, all the way from the top down, they’ve been doing training for weeks. Our resident advisors, they’re really excited and eager to bring the students to the events. There’s going to be a lot of intentional efforts to get the students involved,” Phillips said. 

“When a student builds a definite community, they are so much more likely to graduate and finish their degree because they build that community. Those people they meet are who are going to support them through the tough times,” Cooney said.

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