After spending an afternoon at Winterfest interviewing students and collecting items for the Student Life junk journal, I was curious about the behind-the-scenes perspectives.
Each year, the Center for Campus Involvement (CCI) hosts Winterfest, strengthening campus connections and student involvement for the university. I wanted to hear from someone who sees Winterfest from a birds-eye view and understand what Winterfest means to those who help make it possible.
To explore that perspective, I spoke with Jennifer Walker, lead manager for student organizations at CCI.
Winterfest’s role in campus culture and connection
Q: From your perspective, what role does Winterfest play in helping with campus culture?
Michigan has a diverse, large and active student organization culture. Winterfest is a celebration of that culture and the 1,700-plus-strong student organization community. It’s also a great opportunity to welcome returning students back to campus for the winter term and introduce new students to the hundreds of student organizations.
Q: How do you see involvement affecting belonging at U-M?
U-M is a large university and getting involved in campus is one way to make a large place feel more like home.
In particular, student organizations are an amazing opportunity for students to build community, explore their leadership and their interests. While feeling a sense of belonging can be different for every person, finding a student organization or community that is supportive, caring, celebratory, fun and purposeful can all be stepping stones towards feeling like you belong here.
The impact and experience of Winterfest
Q: Why is it important for students to get involved outside of their classes?
We know that involvement outside of the classroom supports a student’s learning and development inside of the classroom (Astin’s Student Involvement Theory).
Students have the opportunity outside of the classroom to apply the skills they are learning, have a creative outlet, explore their own leadership and communication skills, network, and work across differences.
Q: What do you think success looks like for Winterfest?
At its core, Winterfest is about building connections and community between students and student organizations.
We hope student organizations can walk away excited about the students they met and their interest in exploring their groups further, and similar that students walk away inspired and interested to continue to explore their involvement in student groups because of the people they met.
Internally, we are always working to improve the administrative processes, the event experience, and trying to accommodate as many student organizations as possible while ensuring a safe event experience for all.
Q: What is a moment that made you proud of Winterfest? Or the student organization community, in general?
It is hard not to be proud of the diversity of our student organization community while walking around Winterfest.
From anime, to boxing, to chess, to engineering project teams, and spoken word groups, you can see it all. Also, I love as our team breaks down the event, getting to see the student groups continuing to spend time with one another.
As we broke down this year, groups were playing guitar and singing, starting to play board games with one another, or walking off to get dinner together.
Tips for exploring and getting involved
Q: What would you tell a new student on how to approach Winterfest and get the most out of it?
Everyone approaches Winterfest differently—and that is OK!
I would recommend for students to think about what they want to get out of the event. Do you want to just explore the community or do you have specific groups you want to meet? If you have specific groups you want to meet, consider looking in advance when they will be participating.
Also, we recognize that Winterfest might not be for everyone or you may walk away still trying to figure out how to get involved. Students can explore all student groups on Maize Pages, utilize the Center for Campus Involvement Maizey AI chat tool to explore student groups, or sign-up for a 1:1 involvement drop-in with a peer to discuss how to get involved.
Curious how this conversation got started? Read Scraps of Belonging for Winterfest reflections and student stories.