Ryan Smith, assistant director of student activities, works to ensure that students have an opportunity to take a step away from their studies and relax through organizing events.  To accomplish this task, the members of the Student Activities Board are divided up into subcategories including music entertainment, common happenings, athletic fun and fitness. These categories can help SAB determine what type of events Waynesburg students would like to see be held on campus..

“They brainstorm ideas of future events,” Smith said. “They also strategically look at events in the past to see what worked and what didn’t work.”

SAB doesn’t only use its own ideas and opinions about events, but also likes to get feedback from students. SAB wants to know things such as whether or not students are enjoying the events, what it can do differently and if the event is worth bringing back. To get feedback from students, Smith said that students can go onto myConnect and find the “SAB Event Evaluation” form, which is located under “Other Information/Requests”.

“We are always encouraging anyone to join SAB to be able to voice their opinions on events,” Smith said. “If they have any new ideas we are always open for new ideas and we would most likely plan it for the Spring semester because we have already done the planning for the Fall semester.”

Sometimes a planned event can go wrong for SAB; such as a performer arriving late, or a scheduled event falling through. But, according to Smith, most of the time these mistakes are never detected by students at the events.

“Things go wrong at our events all of the time,” said Smith. “Most of the time we just try to cover it up so that way the students don’t know.”

Smith said that one of the more common things that go wrong is when a performer doesn’t show up on time. He said that an example of this was when a performer showed up an hour late due to traffic.

“A few students from Upper Room decided to go get their instruments and perform while we waited,” said Smith. “[Junior] Harry Oakes had his harmonica and performed for us while we waited for the performer to arrive.”

Whenever there is an event coming up that is off campus, suchas the Price is Right or a professional sports game, SAB usually will sell the tickets to students for half price and the rest will be paid by SAB. On top of paying half of each student’s ticket, SAB purchases a bus to transport those who attend. This student discount comes with a cost.

“Everyone has a Student Activities fee in what they have to pay for their tuition,” said Smith. “So, a piece of everyone’s tuition goes towards activities on campus and the student activities board sees a portion of that money to pay for events.”

Some upcoming events for the fall semester that have been planned are a Penguins game, a glass blowing trip and the Winter Semi-Formal. Those who are interested in any of these events you can go onto the myConnect homepage to sign up.