How We’re Raising the Stakes for SSU’s Future Events

By: Ahmed Khan, Mauricio Cecena, Alfred Bokea

This June, we took a trip to Vancouver, BC for the annual COCA Student Life Summit. The Student Life Summit focuses on finding ways to improve student life across college and university campuses. Numerous Canadian colleges and universities attended the conference, and the departments that had the greatest focus were marketing, events, and clubs. Events like these help student leaders like us learn how to create a better experience for students on campus.

The week began with some pre-conference activities, followed by a meet and greet for all the delegates (that’s us!). We took part in activities that gave us the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with delegates from other schools and ended those days with a showcase event, which highlighted musical and variety acts that could potentially be booked to perform at the schools. We took part in several educational sessions throughout the day, and each education session had an expert instructor discuss topics that were important to each department. Some examples include: Programming 101/102, Rebuilding Campus Culture Through Clubs, and Sponsorship, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Events, and more. We learned a lot from our ‘ed’ sessions and were fortunate to have opportunities to talk to the speakers after the presentations.

The showcase events we attended had a wide variety of performers each day—from rock bands and DJs to comedians and magicians! These artists to showcased their talents to a large audience and expanded their fanbase, while we had the chance to socialize with our peers from different organizations. Of those that performed, our favourites were Tragedy Ann, Savio Joseph, Ola Dada, T-ray the violinist and Dynesti. Watching these performances was surreal, to be able to experience the art of music, comedy, and magic is something that we won’t forget. The magician Savio’s act was nothing short of mind-blowing, and the team started to think that it was some sort of witchcraft he was playing with. Tragedy Ann, on the other hand, blew our minds away with their vocals that captured the attention of the entire room. They were talented and turned simplicity into something magical. It was beautiful to witness. Having the opportunity to interact with these performers gave us a chance to learn more about what drives these artists to do what they do so passionately. It felt amazing to learn more about the lives of talented artists like them.  

Two of the conference days had roundtable sessions, and Alfred said that these sessions were probably his favourite. There were topics and prompt questions at each table that delegates were encouraged to discuss and exchange ideas with each other. Some of the topics included: stealing good ideas, inclusivity in events, club event support, social media ideas, and campaigns to increase engagement and awareness. This event was his favourite because he refined his previous ideas while also adding to the team’s collective ideas for events. Beyond improving our event ideas, we also learned ways in which we can market or execute future events differently. Without a doubt, there will be an increase in student engagement with our new methods.

Our downtime was spent exploring the city. Vancouver is beautiful and since our hotel was right beside the water, we walked down to the pier and enjoyed the sunset every evening. The area of the city we were in was very walkable, so we went to most places on foot. There were lots of trees downtown, so the air felt fresher than expected and really made us enjoy being outside. We also found some great restaurants in the area, particularly the Chinese restaurant called “Happy Noodle.” It was so good that we went back on another day to eat there again—even though the walk was 30 minutes long!

The COCA Student Life Summit is an important event, not just to us as SSU staff but to Sheridan students as well. When we as student leaders have the opportunity to learn, improve on ideas, and be inspired to do better, it reflects in our work and will directly impact the quality of events we bring to students. We are grateful to have had the chance to attend and make new memories, and we look forward to implementing the ideas we learned from the COCA Student Life Summit!

We believe that the best #SheridanLife is one where students have access to opportunities, experiences and tools that help them grow and serve their fellow students.

That’s why the Sheridan Student Union is committed to offering our student leaders career development opportunities and experiences that help them grow and serve the needs of our students. To read more about how your student leaders are working together to advocate for the best #SheridanLife, visit thessu.ca/sheridanlife