A student-run, student-operated committee recently formed on campus to keep the campus community civically involved.
The Student Civic Engagement Committee is considered an activities organization. They organize events on and off campus, including the facilitation of distinguished speakers for their events, informational gatherings and charitable activities. Members also run StarCorps, the volunteer database for OCU.
The SCEC began piecing together their organization last spring, had some meetings during the summer and then officially began planning and hosting events last semester.
Trae Trousdale, mass communications sophomore and director of the SCEC, said Levi Harrel, director of student engagement, used to handle all SCEC responsibilities himself.
“It was one person trying to coordinate all these events and trying to contact people off campus,” Trousdale said. “And it didn’t really have that student feel. It wasn’t led by students. It was more of us being told to do or being asked to do by the university. Levi saw that as a problem.”
Harrel assembled an all-student committee and became their faculty adviser. The SCEC operates as a charitable organization and a student activities organization. There are 12 executive members.
For Bequer Gomez, mass communications senior and off campus event coordinator for SCEC, it’s about the charity.
“For me, it’s important because it’s a way of us helping,” Gomez said. “That’s one of the most important things to me—serving. Being the hands and feet for people who can’t.”
Trousdale said the student activities aspect comes before the charity. He also said the SCEC is more about community.
“We are really trying to build a community,” Trousdale said. “I think we all sort of have this identity with OCU, but it’s not a cohesive identity. There’s a disconnect between the students outside of the performing arts and students in the performing arts. What we’re really trying to do is take down those barriers and make events that every student is going to want to come and participate in. At the heart of it, we are just students trying to coordinate activities for other students.”
Recent events organized by the SCEC include the MLK Day of Service, Comment and Chill with Title IX, a Veteran’s Day service project, and a 9/11 service project. They are planning an event with Spectrum, the on-campus LGBTQIA+ alliance and preparing for an event involving the Oklahoma City National Memorial.
Students may stay updated on volunteer and service opportunities by joining StarCorps. They may do this by accessing, filling out and submitting a registration form via the StarCorps Facebook page or the Student Civic Engagement Committee’s OrgSync page. By doing so, students can stay up to date on specific volunteer opportunities they might be interested in, on campus and in the Oklahoma City area.
“StarCorps is an easy way to get plugged in with giving back,” said Ellie Roth, SCEC’s volunteer coordinator. “SCEC does all the planning and prep work, and students just show up, have some fun and do some good for our campus and community.”
The SCEC is on Twitter @okcuscec and on Instagram @okcuscec. Students may also contact Trousdale via email at btrousdale@my.okcu.edu or Roth via email at evroth@my.okcu.edu.
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