Some students at Normandale Community College (NCC) don’t feel a sense of student community at their school.
The University of Minnesota has a week-long welcome for first-year students that is filled with activities that help unite the students as well as bring them together for workshops, meals, tours, and other various happenings in the week before the fall semester begins.
When I asked Wanda Smith, a student at NCC, if she thinks that there is less of a student community at NCC versus other colleges and universities, she answered with a firm “Yes.” Smith attributes the lack of student community to the absence of dorms and says that students in dorms cling to one another, whereas students at Normandale just go to classes and then leave as soon as their classes are over.
But not everyone agrees with Smith. Jordan Bugella, the director of technology for Student Senate, has a different point of view.
“With my experience in MSCSA, which is our state lobby organization … where all the student senates come together and have a chance to talk with a lot of other students from other schools, and comparably I would say that we have a pretty large student life community.”
Bugella attributes this to NCC’s large student population, emphasis on student life from the administrators, and the money that is budgeted to student life.
Bugella says that NCC’s student community still has room for improvement.
“I’m the type of person that believes that anything can always be improved;” says Bugella. “It’s never perfect…. [But] I would say that it’s pretty good as it stands.”
When I asked him how he would improve it if it were up to him, he answered, “That is a tough question, because it is so good. I would just say [it would be] reaching out to more students. [Because] some students… aren’t necessarily aware of the opportunities that student life has for them.”
-Amy Warwick, Lions’ Roar
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