Meet McKinsey Wiltermuth, a senior criminology major here at Missouri State. McKinsey is involved with a variety of different organizations on campus. Some of those include being the Director of Student Affairs Engagement on Student Government Association, being Ritual Chairman in her sorority Alpha Sigma Alpha, working in the Center for Community Engagement with Green Dot and Escalation and sitting on the PSU Advisory Board. We had a conversation with McKinsey about her involvement with the SGA and the program Traveling Bears.
Why did you decide to get involved with the Student Government Association? I got involved with SGA through my sorority. We needed two members to serve as representatives in senate and I volunteered to do it for one semester. After going to Senate and hearing all of the amazing things that STUDENTS were getting to accomplish on this campus I knew I wanted to continue to be involved with SGA. As time passed I was able to see how much of an impact SGA really has on this campus and that’s why I decided to run for a cabinet position.
As the Director of Student Affairs Engagement I have a variety of different opportunities as far as what I can work on. Some of my major resources are Dining Services, the Plaster Student Union, and currently working to get commuter students more involved and engaged on campus.
What is Traveling Bears? Traveling Bears is a program aimed at helping commuter students feel welcome on campus and provides them with resources to get involved. Some of the main goals for this last semester were aimed at getting students in the dining halls, PSU and bookstore. We stationed volunteers at Bear Park South on the first two days of the semester from 8am to noon with giveaways and a friendly face. We provided students with “buy-one-get-one” free coupons for the dining halls so they could bring a friend. As a commuter student myself, I never used the dining halls or felt like they were for me, so it was important to encourage commuter students to use this amenity. Another thing we offered was bookstore coupons. The goal of this was to get students to go to the bookstore, look at the apparel and hopefully buy something. Wearing BearWear gets students spirts up and really promotes school pride, which will hopefully bridge the gap for commuter students to feel like this campus is their home. We also gave contact information for the Student Government Association so if students wanted to get involved they were given the resources to do so.
I think it is so important for commuter students to feel like they are a part of this campus because having those connections to individuals and having a support system makes all the difference in being successful in college. The students who get the most out of their college experience are the ones who join clubs and organizations, meet people from all different backgrounds, utilize the many different resources the campus has to offer, and stay connected with important issues on campus. Commuter students have a disadvantage when it comes to this involvement because they have to seek it out, so giving them some resources to encourage them to do more than just come to class will show them Missouri State is more than just an academics, it is an environment that encourages students to live up to their full potential and really be the best version of themselves. But unfortunately commuter students don’t often recognize this without going out of their comfort zone and using the dining halls, or buying BearWear or joining a club on campus. So encouraging those things right off the bat will hopefully give our commuter students the extra push they need to seek out the amazing opportunities this campus holds for them. We will be continuing this program for semesters to come and although I felt it was successful last semester, I feel like there is a lot of room for improvement and I look forward to seeing this program grow and expand.
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