The Campus Activities Board was designed with the fundamental goals of enriching the social and recreational needs of the entire Gustavus community, according to their mission statement. Following a campus-wide “Lay Low” COVID-19 mandate by President Rebecca Bergman, college-recognized student groups and organizations are to immediately cease all in-person events. CAB has since released a detailed itinerary of virtual events that students can attend, and these events have been drawing significant student interest on CAB’s social media platforms.
Senior CAB Co-President, Katie Ashpole, shares her experience in navigating CAB activities in a virtual platform. After three years of being on the CAB board, Ashpole notes the uniqueness of this semester, and especially the new “Lay Low” mandate, but continues to genuinely enjoy some aspects of being online.
“As a board, we try to come up with new, unique things. Especially right now as we are trying to figure out how to recreate our most popular in-person events, in a virtual platform. Without the physical presence of CAB in the Courtyard or Campus Center, there is a lot more online marketing. We have to do a lot of brainstorming on how to get all event information accessible on our Instagram or our Facebook. It has been tough but the board has done a great job of finding engaging online events that reach the entirety of campus,” Ashpole said.
CAB has released campus-wide daily emails in regards to the eight different virtual events they will be hosting from Monday, November 13 through Saturday, November 21. These events range from Tik Tok competitions to Among Us video game tournaments. Most of these virtual CAB events give opportunities for participants to win prizes that range from Polaroid cameras up to $500 in cash. These virtual events have drawn a lot of community interest, according to Ashpole and Instagram engagements.
“We had a great turnout for Virtual Pride Bingo, two super great hosts who we’d never had before, and we got a lot of positive feedback on how fun the event was, which was super exciting for the CAB board,” Ashpole said.
Ashpole addresses Zoom fatigue, or the exhaustion of continuous virtual efforts, and how she continues to view the success of CAB’s virtual events as a positive reflection of the board’s hard work.
“In terms of Zoom fatigue, I definitely miss the in-person events and being able to see and engage people within these events. After a while it gets tough to continue to be really creative in a virtual setting but I continue to look forward to new ideas, interesting hosts, and seeing how other people have been able to adjust their performances to work virtually,” Ashpole said.
The CAB’s efforts towards creativity in an online platform have translated into events such as murder mysteries, interactive competitive bingos, TikTok competitons, video game tournaments and more. The CAB instagram page, @gustavuscab, continues to post daily updates about virtual events during this “Lay Low” period, provide information on how students can win prizes and generate excitement about upcoming events. Stay tuned for daily emails from CAB for Zoom links and more information on how to participate in any of these upcoming events (and win prizes).