Challenges Facing Executives: Conference Services, SMUSA and Member Engagement
Written by: Leah Oake
Thumbnail & Banner Photo by Cherrydeck on Unsplash
Spearheading a society is simultaneously a gift and a challenge. It's a joy to be able to lead like-minded individuals through events and meetings. Being on an executive team allows someone to maintain leadership and communication skills, and develop their creative thinking and friendships. While being an executive member comes with incredible parts it also comes with hard-to-navigate obstacles. Executive members begin their journey having a flood of ideas of how to change their society’s position in SMU, but these ideas cannot come to fruition without the “green light” from SMUSA, conference services and the society's members. The most crucial time in a society's life is the beginning of the fall semester. During that time the majority of new and returning students are coming back to campus. However, it is not always easy to immediately become active. There needs to be constant communication between SMUSA, Conference services, and the executive members, and when that communication is broken, societies suffer. For example, The Drama Society actively struggles to gain guaranteed access to the McNally Main Auditorium even though their society is based on acting and a theatre space. Other societies use that space as well for their big events of the year but the Drama Society actively needs the space in order to perform (all of their props and costumes are in the closets in the Auditorium as well).
1. Societies that Want to Branch Out – Trouble with Conference Services
This section will focus mainly on the Drama Society and the Tempo Tribe Music Society. Societies that do not directly relate to academic disciplines or cultural themes face challenges in securing spaces. The school itself has sparse locations for these societies to hold rehearsals for their respective activities. The accessibility for academic societies is greater than others. Academic societies are normally content with any space the university can provide to hold their meetings or events whereas recreational societies need specific requests (spaces, size, etc). There is a constant debate between the recreational societies and conference services about what space they can use. One demand that conference services have been imposing on these societies is that they cannot disturb anyone. This may seem reasonable at first, but these societies require a certain level of noise/movement in order to function, so this restriction makes running these societies significantly harder. Obviously, societies cannot disturb faculty or any classes going on, but instead of refusing these societies flat-out, for executive members, Conference Services and SMUSA could work together to find an acceptable space that can be prioritized for these sorts of societies. I had a conversation with an anonymous representative from one of the societies, and they mentioned: “Conference Services told me that SMU was not a school equipped for music so we should plan from now on to do things that do not require sound.” It is unfortunate that there are not many accessible spaces for student societies where they can do what they love; singing, dancing, etc. Universities are promoted as environments where students are encouraged to explore their interests and pursue them freely. But these students can’t do that when the societies they want to take part in are hurt by these rules. The Drama Society could only access the McNally Main Auditorium from 9:00 am-12:00 pm during their rehearsals for Carrie the Musical. This put immense strain on the actors. They were not only faced with the normal amount of anxieties any actor deals with but on top of that, they had barely any time to practice on the stage. The tech crew of the show had to show up before the actors did and had limited time to set up. Rushing the set up process can lead to missteps and further issues. The constant back and forth between conference services and societies makes it hard for societies to do what they, and their members, want. Conference services work with all of SMU’s societies every year and they are also trying to adjust to these new requests but it is difficult for both societies and conference services to be able to adapt to each other's needs. Considering that there have not yet been any accommodations for societies outside of the normal academic-centered ones there is still a long way to go to make these requests doable. A solution that could help start this process is a clear conversation about what is needed and what can be done to help both parties involved.
2. Communication - Trouble with SMUSA
Communication between societies and SMUSA over the last couple of years has been deemed unacceptable by many society executives. For those who aren't aware, for societies to host events or meetings an executive member must submit a serm form two weeks before the event is to take place. Despite this two week notice, this year, many societies have been stuck with no approval or acknowledgement of the form. This means that promotional material is often held back until the event is accepted in case they are rejected or ignored. This year, many societies, including the Pride Society, the Ancient Studies Society and the Psychology Society, have had to backpedal on plans or events because the communication between them and SMUSA did not meet the necessary deadlines. This is not to discredit everything SMUSA does but it is to hold them accountable. One executive member spoke about their experience with SERM form submissions:
“SERM forms have been improved, I will say that, but it's no use to improve them if there is still no way for execs to know if a form has been accepted or even seen until the VP sends us an email. I think it would be beneficial to have an automated email that tells executives that the form has been received, as I do know that the form can be buggy sometimes. Events cannot be planned with mere days' notice of them being approved, let alone properly promoted or funded or what have you.”
This person brings up a possible solution. An automated system could help SMUSA reduce their workload and help societies host and promote their events within a reasonable time frame. Every year there is a Society Summit, and at least two executive members are required to attend so that their society can keep their ratification. This year, SMUSA emailed societies less than 72 hours before the event was to take place. Another society executive spoke to me about their experience with this issue.
"At the time of writing this, there has also been no notice or information or anything at all of a Society Roundtable. These were huge last year and super important in helping societies get their views across and making things happen. In my opinion, they are the reason so much has improved over the past six months, but there is still a way to go and there has been no mention of another one happening this year. A slight mention at the Summit was made, just a 'more info will come soon,' but there has been nothing since. This is especially concerning as the first roundtable last year was after the Society Summit held in January, which allowed us to have our thoughts fresh from the Summit itself. If there is going to be one soon, my society has heard nothing about it, nor has anyone I have contact with.”
The email sent to societies stated that they expected everyone would attend, but a lot of executive teams could not attend because of the short notice. Many people had previous engagements, appointments and classes. After the society summit was held, a second one was announced with two weeks’ notice to accommodate all of the executives that missed the first one, but if executive members could not attend this one they would risk their ratification. Like the executive spoke about, round tables are crucial for society’s function. They need to be able to have a place to voice their issues where they will be heard, instead of their concerns being lost in a slew of emails. A possible solution for these communication issues could be an automated serm form system or having multiple people be in control of accepting serm forms (instead of just the SMU VP of Societies) and consistent round table discussion to keep open and honest conversations.
3. Engagement - Member Trouble
After the hurdles executive members have to jump through to have acceptable communication with SMUSA and conference services, they still have to work to engage their members. Society members are hard to read. It takes a while for an executive team to be able to realize what will bring members to support and what won't. It takes trial and error. Ratification and bookings mean nothing if a society does not have the support of its members. The members are the executive member’s top priority because without them they would cease to function and cease to have any sort of impact. The struggle executive members face is finding ways they can reach their audience. Is it with posters around campus? Funny TikToks? Loads of informational posts on Instagram? Announcements in the SMUSA calendar? Once a society finds what their niche is they will be able to have a more adjustable engagement from their members. Possible solutions to help increase engagement can be found in my article “Carefully Crafting a Consistent Account - With A Focus on Instagram.” In addition, executives can look to have an equal amount of promotion on campus and online. It also would not hurt to have a variety of events that can apply to all personnel (trivia, painting, dances at the Gorsebrook, etc)
To conclude, societies are what makes a university campus fun. University is, of course, focused on academics, but students need recreation. They need fun activities and events they can partake in that will allow them moments to take their mind off of the overwhelming work they have to do. Society executives work tirelessly to maintain a well-viewed and enjoyable society but without the support from the entirety of SMU, none of their work will matter. Even though tensions can rise between societies and SMUSA or conference services it is crucial to remember that at the end of the day, everyone is looking to make SMU a better campus day after day. Open conversations are needed to create the change executives want. Thank your executive members and give events a chance! They are doing these events for YOU.