Tag: student involvement

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Concordia Student Union News

New school year, new CSU: Harley Martin as General Coordinator

Harley Martin working on upcoming projects. Photo by Emma Megelas / The Concordian

How a political science student is creating a fair and engaging CSU for Concordia students.

In the wake of a new school year, the Concordia Student Union (CSU) is starting fresh with new members on their team. Harley Martin may not be one of them since he knows his way around the CSU, but now he has a new opportunity in his hands.

Harley Martin is a history and political science student and the CSU’s new General Coordinator (GC). Last year, he was formerly the Student Life Coordinator of the CSU, until he was later appointed as the GC.

“I feel every day I’m learning new things that I wasn’t aware of before, but having a year of experience to kind of see how things work, know people, know where to look for the answers all that is really helpful,” said Martin.

Following a scandal last year with the former GC, Martin has his eyes on having a steady communication between the members, making sure no idea or issue is ignored.

“We cannot have any silos of information, so I just try and share everything with everyone like on the team,” he told The Concordian.

Martin sees a more engaging and interconnected CSU staff this year. As the GC, he makes sure that everyone on the team is doing their work, is comfortable in their environment, and has all of the information they need for their projects. It is one of the most important tasks of his job and it helps him create deeper relationships with the team.

“Everyone is really fun and does their work, but also it’s fun to hang out when we have free time and we’re sitting here for a minute. So, it has a nice feel to it which is good because you need your environment to be pleasant,” said Martin.

Hannah Jackson is an art education student and the CSU’s External Affairs and Mobilization Coordinator. She is responsible for Concordia’s external connections for the CSU’s campaigns throughout the year. During COVID-19, she did not have the chance to be as involved in Concordia life as she had thought. With school being in-person again, she can now flourish in her passion for activism at the CSU and share her craft fiercely with her supportive colleagues.

“I found myself very supported not just by [my team] signing off on what I do, but also wanting to talk to me about and giving me their ideas, so that’s been really positive so far,” said Jackson.

Tanou Bah is a sociology student and the CSU’s new Student Life Coordinator. She was previously the Social Media Coordinator and she worked alongside Martin last year. Bah admires Martin’s perseverance to have a reliable team in the new year and she continues to see that in his work ethic.

“You’re only here for a year and then you’re gone and so a lot of the projects that were started can sometimes fall through. That’s why it’s great to have Harley because he knew what was happening last year and we can continue to push for that,” said Bah.

Harley Martin has one year left at Concordia and wants to continue his involvement one last time with the CSU by doing it right. He is hoping for more student involvement this year through tabling at the Loyola and downtown campuses next week, as well as by creating a safe environment at the CSU.

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News

Getting back to the heart: CASA Cares launches debut podcast, Heart to Heart

The podcast sets out to inform and inspire the Concordia student body, one episode at a time

This January saw CASA Cares, the nonprofit subsidiary of JMSB, launch its debut podcast, Heart to Heart. With podcast consumption nearly doubling throughout the pandemic, Heart to Heart sets out to bridge the gap between Concordia students and the community left in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The interview-based podcast offers a platform where Concordia students can access advice and information on real concerns and events from experts in relevant fields. Structured on a bi-weekly release schedule, Heart to Heart will dedicate two 30-minute episodes each month to examining a particular cause or issue relating to current events.

“The podcast is basically trying to do two things,” said Divya Aery, the vice president of involvement for CASA Cares and the host of Heart to Heart. “One is trying to raise awareness on social issues and community initiatives. [The second] is trying to encourage or promote student involvement.”

This past month, Heart to Heart examined the effects that the recent lockdown measures has had on student’s mental health. Guest speakers from Jack.org, the non-profit organization dedicated to youth mental health, listed a series of resources that students struggling with their mental health can access for immediate and long-term support.

Heart to Heart marks a shift in focus for the organization, which has traditionally been centred on hosting in-person fundraising events. It’s the first initiative launched by CASA Cares that does not revolve around fundraising for a particular cause or charity.

We don’t get any sort of revenue from this and it works because there is no cost either,” said Aery. “So it kind of just cancels [out] that way.”

For the non-profit organization, Heart to Heart brings the unprecedented challenge of having to operate the podcast on a zero dollar budget. All work relating to the day-to-day operation of the podcast is conducted solely by the project’s founding members. The Heart to Heart team has been using free programs such as Zoom and GarageBand to record and edit each episode, as well as recruiting guest speakers on a volunteer basis.

Despite the Heart to Heart team’s hard work, technical issues and just plain bad luck have still been major obstacles surrounding the launch.

“We had to record the first episode five times,” said Aery, when asked about Heart to Heart’s production process. “The audio kept cutting or I wasn’t happy with my questions or I thought we could have focused more on one [subject] over the other. And of course, my laptop crashed and I lost all the files, so I had to do another take.”

However, it is the dedication and commitment of the Heart to Heart founders that have let the project overcome these initial setbacks.

“There is such an impact for me personally,” said Khang Nghi Can, CASA Cares’ first-year representative and producer of Heart to Heart. “Sometimes, I’ll be editing and listening to it and I’m like, yeah, this is the thing I should do for myself, too. What if one person listens to the podcast and it makes them think differently? So if we can really help one person, like, that’s already huge.”

Heart to Heart is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the CASA Cares website.

 

Logo courtesy of CASA Cares

Categories
Student Life

Sparking engagement throughout Concordia

Press photo by Concordia University

Get to know the team of students empowering other students

Ever feel like you want to do something—get involved with a social movement or community project somehow—but aren’t sure where to start? Concordia’s extra curricular community is broad and can feel pretty nebulous, which makes it hard to find what floats your boat. “There are a lot of students who come to Concordia, go to their classes, and they graduate, not having done anything with [their time at Concordia],” said Nick Gertler, a communications and political science student, as well as an ambassador for Spark!.

Spark!, a new collaborative initiative that aims to connect students with the larger community on campus, is led by the Dean of Students Office and a team of eight student ambassadors. In fall 2017, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), with support from la Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur and Spark!, began researching the disparity between students’s intentions to engage in high-impact practices (HIPs), and their completion of any by graduation—or the student engagement gap, as the NSSE deemed their findings. Their main goal: decreasing that gap, and increasing student involvement, both on and off campus. “We’re trying to figure out how to best connect students with the opportunities that already exist [at Concordia], as opposed to creating a whole new thing, in and of itself,” said Gertler.

Between a handful of separate faculties, over a dozen organizations, initiatives and community projects around campus and more than 50,000 students at Concordia, it’s fair to say the student body is quite factioned off. When it comes to connecting students, “the constant problem [is] these little communication bubbles,” said Gertler. By building relationships with existing on-campus associations, unions, faculties and networking to new students through a fleet of student ambassadors, Gertler explained that Spark! is hoping to find ways in which those communication bubbles intersect and where they can be popped to spark engagement.

While Spark! has spent this past year researching and preparing for their launch, the student-led initiative will be introducing themselves to first-year classes over the next few weeks. “We’re really trying to keep the perspective of ‘meet students where they are,’” said Philippe Boucher, a first peoples studies student and ambassador for Spark!. “And with these class presentations, the goal is not really to present specific associations or projects, but more to ask questions like ‘Why get involved? What is involvement?,’” said Boucher.

According to George Kuh, founding director of NSSE, students should participate in at least two HIPs throughout their undergraduate degree: one during their first year and one in the context of their major. However, when students think about engaging in extracurricular activities on campus, explained Boucher, there’s a box those activities are put into. “Being involved is not just joining student associations,” said Boucher. “It’s studying abroad, being a research assistant, working in community engagement, […] encouraging students to apply for scholarships—everything.”

Part of being an ambassador, explained Boucher, is showing students the potential for diversity of engagement on campus by being engaged yourself. “It’s the first project I’ve ever really heard about that’s pushing for student engagement with students who are engaged.”

“I’ve been a student leader since like, first year,” said Jessica Lopez, a contemporary dance student and ambassador for Spark!. “I’ve worked with FASA, Art Matters, student council, etc., and my favourite part of all of those was the meetings. I learned how to talk in so many different ways, to so many different people, to have so many different results,” said Lopez. “I really enjoyed gaining that wider perspective of society, and want to bring that to other students.”

In addition to fostering engagement through communication and collaboration, Spark! hopes to empower individuals to see the applicability of skills they already possess. “What’s interesting about [Spark!] is that we have all these ‘resources,’ but we are those resources,” said Lopez. As ambassadors and students, we have such a wide perspective and range of experiences, Lopez explained, and part of going out and talking to students face-to-face is to help them realize they also have this knowledge. “It’s a fantastic system of engaging students, who are already engaged, to engage more students,” said Lopez.

Spark! also hopes to work with students who are already involved to help communicate and further the scope of their engagement, explained Gertler. “On that side of things, part of what we do is give [students] the language around what they’re already doing. You know, enabling people to communicate the fact that they are engaged, and that that presents opportunities for further engagement.”

“We’re kind of overwhelmed at times; there’s just so much information out there [about extracurriculars],” said Boucher. There’s also this expectation that, as students, we can extract the essence of a skill we have and immediately find where it would be applicable, said Boucher. “But there are so many different ways to engage, and part of what we do—part of our goal—is to help be a window for that information.”

To learn more about Spark! and how to contact an ambassador visit: http://www.concordia.ca/students/engagement/about.html

Featured press photo by Concordia University

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