By: Gabbie Witter ’21, staff writer

The Zoom calls don’t end when class does. The college is doing everything it can to keep students feeling connected and engaged with continued extracurriculars available for all students. 

Since campus was first affected by COVID-19 in March, Student Engagement has been implementing events that can be accessed virtually, including a yoga class. The yoga class is held on the lawn behind the Shroyer Health Center but can be joined by Zoom as well.  

“We have an iPad on a tripod focused on Sarena (or the student leading the event) and we advertise the Zoom link for students to join in,” Jen Evans, director of student engagement, said. 

Student Engagement has been experimenting with different events to see what works best to include both on-campus and online students. The yoga sessions have been receiving good feedback so far, but there are events that aren’t translating as well over Zoom calls.  

“We did the same thing for the comedy show last week and will offer our Thursday night trivia virtually as well,” Evans said. “The comedy show didn’t work too well last week so we may not do that again. Viewers had a hard time hearing him with all the background noise.” 

Figuring out how to keep online students involved in on-campus events is a trial and error process. Evans said one of the hardest aspects of planning events is finding a variety of events and appropriate places to host them.  

“The Mary Green tent works ok but seems like there is always a loud car and or train that goes by and we seem to have a resident cricket that gets noisy at times,” Evans said. “Lighting is also a challenge. But the darn Pennsylvania weather has been most challenging – it seems to be a rainy start to the semester.” 

If students have any ideas for events that can be held both in person and virtually, share them with Student Engagement.