This spring, the Student Activities Association (SAA) is offering a slate of events. The student-led organization, focused on providing free activities for all University of Mississippi students, has sought to maintain traditions that improve social life on campus.
“The first day back, on Jan. 20, our campus traditions committee is jumping into the new year. So, we are going to have some bungee jumping outside on the Union Plaza and a couple other fun things to do,” Mr. Ole Miss Ryan Augustine said.
In addition to bungee jumping on the first day of classes, SAA plans to hold a murder mystery dinner night on Jan. 27 and will collaborate with the Associated Student Body for a Bingo night for Jan. 30.
Augustine, a senior allied health studies major and Madison, Miss., native, serves as the executive director of the organization. Augustine believes that SAA is instrumental in producing a sense of community on campus.
“I feel like our goal is always to make sure our programming is purposeful. We’re not just doing some giveaway but making sure there’s a chance for students to actually talk to each other and do something fun that might brighten up their day,” Augustine said.
The organization’s leadership has been planning over the winter break.
“Our spring calendar is tentatively finalized; all the co-directors have been working during break to ensure everything happens,” Augustine said. “We should have at least 40 events this semester.”
SAA touts on its website that its events are “for students, by students.” Senior journalism major and Amory, Miss., native Hannah Hoang, who serves as one of three co-directors for the organization, says that student feedback plays a vital role in the organization’s planning and aims.
“One of the biggest changes coming back a second year as a co-director is I’ve been able to hear feedback from students, and it has challenged me, along with my co-directors, to be more creative when we plan events,” Hoang said.
The organization uses tools such as online forms that query students on their opinions.
“We’ve tried to look at a lot of different feedback from students,” Hoang said. “We have forms now that go out after events that can help us hear what students like.”
Hoang says that for these events, regular vendors will return, including some of her personal nostalgic favorites.
“We are going to have back our airbrush vendors, which people have loved for years. It was something I went to my freshman year,” Hoang said.
Augustine said the organization has revealed to him the importance of maintaining an inclusive community through service.
“There are a lot of people on campus who don’t have date parties to go to or a group house to go hang out with friends. And I think this organization really has taught me the importance of serving in any way possible, like whether it’s community service or just even planning things with other people,” Augustine said.
SAA’s broad goal of building community is complex from a planning perspective, but Augustine emphasized that whatever shortcomings SAA may or may not have, intentionality is the best foot forward.
“There’s intentionality behind everything that’s meaningful,” Augustine said. “If you produce an event and people love it and they meet their best friends there, that might have been the hardest thing to plan. The logistics might have been terrible, something might have broken the day earlier and so many logistics could have gone wrong beforehand, but you see the payoff of students actually finding a place on campus and feeling like they have things to do.”
