NEWS
Progress being made on Task Force’s recommendations
Implementation team
addresses social climate and
out-of-class engagement
Meg Malone
Assistant News Editor
@megretjeane
Last year, 29 members of Eton Universi
ty’s student body, faculty and staff published
a list of 42 recommendations to increase stu
dent involvement in academic, social and in
tellectual activities. More than a semester lat
er, there might not be many tangible results
yet, but change is in progress.
The Presidential Task Force on Social
Climate and Out-of-Class Engagement —
as the group of 29 was collectively known
— released this list almost a year ago in May
2016, which included everything from the
expansion of late-night food options to ex
ploring lateral entry for fellows programs.
Their recommendations fell into five cat
egories: managing expectations, messaging
and the transition of freshmen, increasing
access to high-quality mentoring experienc
es, enhancing traditions and campus social
experiences, enhancing the physical cam
pus environment and reviewing and revis
ing institutional policies and practices.
The responsibility for overseeing these
recommendations’ progression has since
fallen to Randy Williams, associate vice
president for campus engagement and as
sistant professor and Tony Crider, associate
professor of physics — co-chairs of the task
force implementation team.
Crider said he and Williams are not in the
business of addressing each recommendation
themselves, but instead they find or create oth
er groups better-suited for the task at hand.
“IWe’ve been] trying to figure out who are
all the different people that are organizing these
things, and also making sure that we don’t have
two groups trying to accomplish the same
thing and not know about each other,” Crider
said. “It’s one of the things that we’ve been very
deliberate about this very first semester is say
ing, ‘Alright, instead of creating 42 committees,
who’s already doing this?”’
Williams said their role then involves coor
dinating these groups.
“We’re just then mapping all these efforts to
gether for this whole construct of social-climb
ing,” he said.
This fall, Crider said they have been pre
paring for the long road ahead. “The imple
mentation team has spent this past semester as
sort of an umbrella organization,” he said. “As
we approach the spring, we’ve identified those
groups, and we’ll be asking them to list what
their five-year plans are.”
Crider and Williams said they are trying to
make sure these tasks are implemented well
rather than quickly.
They said they see the implementation of
every item on the list as a project that will span
the next five years.
“Our job for the implementation team is
not the sprint of last year’s large group, but it’s
sort of managing a marathon for other peo
ple,” Williams said. “We’re overall marathon
coordinators.”
A lot of their work, Williams said, involves
or will involve discussions and trial-and-error.
This would explain why results have not
been immediate in the case of many of the task
force’s recommendations, though some have
already been completed or are in the process of
becoming nearly so.
Some changes began before the list was
officially released, especially in the Moseley
Center where the PhoenixCONNECT Office
is located.
This office embodies the goals of numerous
recommendations from the task force’s list, but
their message especially echoes the ideas of
the third category — enhancing traditions and
campus social experiences.
Senior Cam Ciesielski is a member of the
connections team. He said the goal of the
office is to be the center of student involve
ment on campus.
“Obviously, you have the office of Stu
dent Involvement, but this is front-and-
center down in Moseley on the first floor,
very accessible for students to walk in and
The Connections Office calendar shows upcoming events in February 2017.
DIEGO PINEDA I Photo Editor
find organizations or causes or events
they’re passionate about and that they can
attend and get involved in,” Ciesielski said.
Senior Alaina Schukraft is another member
of the PhoenixCONNECT team that staffs the
office. “It’s students helping students get con
nected ... if a student comes in here, looking
for a way to get connected on campus, we help
them use PhoenixCONNECT to get involved.”
PhoenixCONNECT is the online half of
this equation. At elon.collegiatelink.net, stu
dents can investigate ongoing and upcoming
events around campus and get in touch with
student organizations from the comfort of their
dorm rooms if they would rather not journey
to Moseley.
A journey to Moseley, however, does have
its benefits. “Obviously, we have our big calen
dar which is kind of the hallmark of the office
right now — just showing all sorts of different
things that we have kind of highlighted as go
ing on around campus,” Ciesielski said.
Like the implementation team of Crider
and Williams, Ciesielski, Schukraft and the
rest of the connections team have a chal
lenge ahead of them, but they are looking
onwards and upwards.
Ciesielski said right now they are working
on “really just getting the word out and estab
lishing a reputation — obviously as a new of
fice, it takes some time to get a foothold.” He
said they hope to incorporate their office more
into the new student orientation process.
The entire new student orientation and first
year transition is the focus of a large portion of
the task force’s recommendations.
For example, with regard to Elon 101, which
is mentioned in a number of action items, a
consultant was called in to recommend ar
eas for improvement in the entirety of the
freshman transition and first year experience,
as mentioned in the first category of the task
force’s recommendations.
As for those changes, “We’re in this pilot
stage right now, so we’ll assess what has hap
pened in the pilot stage and then consider Elon
101 in the grand scheme of the first-year expe
rience,” Williams said.
Sorority recruitment brings enthusiasm, increased numbers
Anton L. Delgado
Contributor
•(gJADelgadoNews
Two weeks after sorority rush,
hundreds of women around Elon’s
campus are now getting used to
their new organizations and their
new Greek lives.
According to Abigail Ojemann,
the President of Elon’s chapter
of Zeta Tau Alpha, her sorori
ty alone took 58 new members,
bringing Zeta Tau Alpha’s overall
Abigail
Ojemann,
president of
Elon’s chapter
of Zeta Tau
Alpha, said
1,315 members
were initiated
in Elon’s nine
sororities.
the United States.
The Office of Fraternity and
Sorority Life was unable to com
ment, but Ojemann said 1,315
members were initiated to Elon’s
nine sororities and the average
chapter size at Elon has grown to
chapter
size
to 215 mem-
bers.
T h e
‘ s e
women
are
now a
part
of Zeta
Tau
Alpha’s
na-
tional
or-
ganization.
which
has
an estimated
235,000
ini-
tiated mem
bers around
Senior Ceci Mulry parties with a large stuffed animal during Alpha Omicron Pi’s Bid Day celebrations.
DIEGO PINEDA I Photo Editor
209 members. In 2015, only 638
recieved bids.
Freshman Veronica Phillips
— a new member of Delta Delta
Delta — was one of the hundreds
of freshmen women that partici
pated in recruitment this year.
“The rush process was super
tiring but incredibly rewarding,”
said Phillips “I am glad that I
made the decision to rush this
year. I really think that being a
part of a sorority will change my
life at Elon.”
Freshman Laura Rossi was not
as sure as Phillips about joining
an organization.
“Rushing was so overwhelm
ing,” Rossi said. “You just met
so many people in such a short
amount of time, and you always
had to have the biggest smile and
be in the chatty mood.”
Despite coming to Elon with
out the intention to rush, Rossi’s
uncertainty about Fraternity and
Sorority Life is what drove her
to ultimately drop out of recruit
ment.
“I didn’t want to regret not try
ing it out,” Rossi said. “But I was
so unsure during the first three
days of rush week that on the
morning of bid day, I decided to
dropout.” "
Two weeks later, Rossi still
stands by her decision.
“I needed to try it out to be re
ally sure that Greek life wasn’t for
me, but now I am sure and I have
absolutely no regrets,” Rossi said.
Rossi may have made the deci
sion about not joining Fraternity
and Sorority Life on her own, but
there were many girls that did not
have that luxury.
“All of the girls that didn’t get
into the sororities they were hop
ing for were devastated,” Rossi
said. “But there are more oppor
tunities to rush, and not getting
into one sorority just means you
are meant to do greater things in
another one.”