Spring SET-Up

Have you ever wondered who is responsible for providing the entertainment and activities that take place on campus each week?

The Student Events Team, also known as SET, is made up of six sub-committees who provide a wide variety of entertainment to the Sacred Heart University campus.

The SET board committees include Advertising, Entertainment, Novelty Events, Public Affairs, Retention, Special Events and Theme and Trips. Each chair from all six committees works hard to come up with a creative selection of events that give students fun options. The board is constantly planning events, and they usually plan an entire month in advance.

“We offer lots of activities and events. We do inflatables when it is warm out, we do DIY crafts, we bring in vendors to create personalized novelties, we do Bingo every month, we do raffles and contests, we give out different food items and we hold larger events such as Spring Fest and Fall Fest,” said President of SET, senior Courtney Cardona. “All fun things to keep the undergraduate students happy and have something to do.”

Since there are three to four events per week, the board meets every week to plan the upcoming events. Certain events can take a while to plan, but SET often gets help from outside companies when planning.

“Events that are run by another company, like Party Vision or FUN, depend on how long it takes for that company to email us back to get the information for the event,” said Secretary of SET, junior Dayna Pendino. “For DIY events, it is all up to the E-Board to come together to see what we need for that event, which can be a quick process.”

SET comes up with activities that are themed to get students more interested and are typically related to what is currently occurring at Sacred Heart. For example, when the university would have normally had spring break in early March, there was a SET Spring Break Week with activities revolving around that theme.

“Two events that the students really liked from that week were the Mock-Tail event and the DIY towels,” said Pendino. “At the Mock-Tail event, we worked with Chartwells and handed out virgin piña coladas, which the students loved.”

SET produces these events to get students more involved on campus and give students a chance to meet new people. When students enjoy specific events, SET tries to offer those events again in the future.

“I enjoy going to the activities when I go with friends because it gives us a reason to leave our suite and do something different from our regular everyday activities,” said sophomore Kayla Berger.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are certain restrictions at the events and some alterations to how activities take place. For example, some of the events provided have been transferred to an online format. Although in previous years these activities were not online, it has offered a new way for students to connect.

“We have to limit the number of people at our events at a time. We cannot do certain events that are not COVID-19 friendly, and we cannot hold our General Member meetings or our board meetings in person; they have to be on Zoom,” said Cardona. “It can be hard at times, but when the board works together and we all discuss with our great minds and ideas, we always come up with something. We are also always open to hear from students and we ask our General Members for ideas as well.”

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