top of page

Student Life Center & Student Involvement

Updated 6/23/21

​

Required talking points

  • The Student Life Center has a ton to offer. The offerings are lots of fun, but they're also way more than that! They help students build community, and they are truly meaningful learning experiences that help students develop leadership and professional skills.

    • 83% of students are involved in a club​!

  • Events & Programs: (Mention UVM Bored + a couple example events)

    • UVM Bored: a website that has a calendar of campus and community events!

    • Week of Welcome: otherwise known as WOW! we start each semester with this celebration; a week (and more!) of fun and engaging events from Paintball to Comedy Shows, with tons of free food, coffee, and some sweet cool swag.

    • Cats at the Movies: free movie tickets to our local downtown theater!

    • SpringFest: An annual Spring Concert that takes over the Jefford’s Parking Lot (outside the Davis Center) for a huge end-of-the-year Celebration. Past artists have included Beast Coast, Playboi Carti, Two Door Cinema Club, and Head and the Heart.

    • Rallython: An annual 12-hour dance marathon that takes over the Davis Center and fundraises for the UVM Children’s Hospital. Rallython has raised over half a million dollars for over the last 5 years. It raised over $140,000 this year – and has raised over half-a-million over the 5 years it has existed!

  • Student Organizations:

    • ​University Program Board: a student organization that helps in the planning and implementation of large and small scale events that are open to the campus community!

    • Closely partners with SGA to manage our 200+ clubs.

  • Student Government:

    • ​Seats reserved for 1st years - you can get involved right away!

    • Participate in committees such as Academic Affairs and Club Affairs to make a difference in the UVM student experience

    • Recognizes the most clubs now and continues to grow.

    • Helped implement Rally Cat's Cupboard for free groceries (do not call it a pantry)

    • Hosts Fresh Check Day

    • Will be opening a new re-designed SGA Galaxy Space this fall that will be a multifunctional use space for all students and clubs.

  • Fraternity & Sorority Life

    • Approximately 9% (or 900 students) participate in FSL; we have 8 fraternities and 6 sororities

    • Emphasize the philanthropic mission of these organizations

    • Do not say "only 8%" of students are in FSL", because that could potentially be read with a negative connotation... Proudly say 8% are in FSL and it is a great small-knit community of students who are also involved in other things!​

  • Student Media

    • WRUV, Cynic, Watertower, UVMTV, Headwaters, the Natural Philosopher​

​

Important notes

  • Please note that New Student Programs/Orientation is NO LONGER housed under Student Life and hasn't been for some time. Do not mention Orientation during your Student Life spiel.

  • Please note the difference between UVM Bored & UPB!

    • ​UVM Bored is the website that highlights campus & community events.

    • University Program Board/UPB is the organization of students that work alongside staff to plan large- and small-scale events throughout the year that are open to all students.

  • When discussing Ski & Snowboard Club, do not say that all students are guaranteed transportation via buses to the mountains. There are limited capacity on the buses, but there are other transportation options.

​

Additional optional talking points

  • TREK

    • ​Trek is an optional, supplemental orientation program that takes place before the start of classes. There are Service Trek programs, Leadership Trek, and Wilderness Trek programs. There are also programs specifically for transfer students, students of color, and LGBTQA+ students. Although Orientation is not managed through Student Life, the Trek programs are. The 2019 Trek was in it's 40th year!!!

    • Last year’s sold-out Labor Day Comedy Show featured Mike Birbiglia.

  • Student Government:

    • Helped implement Rally Cat's Cupboard for free groceries (do not call it a pantry)

    • Hosts Fresh Check Day, which raises awareness of mental health and coping strategies

  • Student Life Marketing Team:

    • A team dedicated to developing marketing materials for Student Life programming. ​

  • Voter Friendly Campus

    • ​Our Civic Engagement team worked with Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and got UVM to be designated as a “Voter Friendly Campus.”

  • Banff Mountain Film Festival

    • In partnership with Outdoor Clubs, ODP brings in multiple film festivals each year that are incredible sell-out events for outdoor and environmental film​

​​

AdvoCat Stories

  • Fraternity & Sorority Life stories:

    • One of the things I love about FSL is that they do so much for charities across the country and in the community. For instance my fraternity every year participates in Seth Rogen's fundraiser for Alzheimers research called "hilarity for charity" and for the past 4ish years we have raised the most money in the country and he has come to visit and we even inducted him as a brother a few years ago. ~Owen Doherty

    • Theta Thanksgiving! Every fall the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority hosts a Thanksgiving dinner, tickets are only $5 and all the proceeds benefit Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). The food is amazing, it's a great event to go to with friends and eat to your hearts content! ~Aidan May

    • Didn't actually get to happen but before COVID I was selected to represent my fraternity in DC to lobby and meet with represenatives at the capitol building with other members of FSL from across the country about higher education issues. Really cool opportunity I got that connects with my academic passions. ~Owen Doherty

    • For 3 years, my fraternity sent brothers to Haiti to work with a local heath center to build a house for folks down there. We fundraised for it and payed for it all. I got to go sophomore year and was one of the coolest experiences of college for me.  ~Owen Doherty

    • My sophomore year I decided to go out for sorority recruitment. I had no idea what to expect since it would all be online. It ended up being one of the best experiences I've had at UVM because I got to meet so many genuinely amazing people. I ended up choosing my home in Tri Delta. I think one of the best things about UVM FSL is that so many people rush sophomore year and it is so much more relaxed at UVM then at other schools, but yet still has really great social events (such as doing intramural sports together) and raising money for charities.  -Avery Alexy

  • Clubs & Orgs stories:

    • ​UVM Democrats brought Congressman Keith Ellison, Governor Howard Dean, and Congressman Welch to campus my first year. Has also led to all of my internships on city council campaigns, with the mayor and more. Kinda cool way to connect academics and clubs. ~Owen Doherty

    • I signed up for an outing club hike to Sterling Pond in February and when we went we had snowshoes and the ground was covered in snow. We missed the trailhead by 1 mile (in the snow that is a lot) and then turned around and still couldn't find it... so we decided to head back to the outing club lodge and all sleep there instead. Met some of my best friends on this trip and everyone was so enthusiastic despite the fact that we did't actually do what we intended to. -Cam Fisher

    • I got the chance to go with UVM Horticulture club to pick apples at the UVM hort farm and make apple cider from the apples I had picked. It was a unique experience because I had never been apple picking before and as a first year with no real method of transportation, it would have been hard to be able to do that.  -Skyler Ayers

    • I was involved in the Tae Kwon Do club for my first two years at UVM, and right after I joined I was invited to go compete at Cornell with the whole team. Aside from having a lot of fun competing, I got to go on a roadtrip with new friends in foliage season, all of the hotel costs were taken care of, and we all had a blast. I never even had to question whether something had been taken care of because the club advisors and officers thought of everything for us!  -Steve Carlson

  • Student Government stories:

    • Some SGA projects accomplished more recently include divestment from fossil fuels, a interfaith prayer space in the Davis Center, investment of $20 million into green bonds by UVM, improved walkways and pedestrian safety, a bus to take students to vote at the library, also partially funded the new UVM rescue building  ~Owen Doherty

    • When I first came to UVM, I wanted to make as many friends as possible but was quite shy to introduce myself to people around me. So I figured to run for SGA Senator as a first-year student for a couple of reasons: (1) I wanted to train my leadership skills and be part of the campus climax. (2) To use my campaign as an excuse to go around and introduce myself to everybody. I significantly increased my social network because of that and was eventually elected as an SGA Senator. SGA was my home and has contributed to my growth as a person in life and in academia.  -Key Nguyen

    • I feel like our SGA stories aren't really that great often and we don't highlight how well administration works with SGA. For instance when we requested that the treasurer (richard cate), put more of our operating reserves into Green Bonds, he literally said Okay and did it during our meeting with him. Of course most projects are not that easy, but a good example. -Owen Doherty

  • Trek Stories:

    • Trek was an amazing opportunity to meet some people before the semester started. I spent about a week in the woods camping and rock climbing with 6 other first year students. We ate all our meals together and bonded very quickly. Two of those people on my trip are still my best friends today! ~Sarah Ladd

    • Prior to my first year at UVM I did a 6 day canoe trip with 9 other first year students and 2 outing club leaders. We were deemed the "allergy trek" because anybody with food allergies were sent to our group (it's how I met some of my closest pals!) On our second day I was trying to make cereal using milk powder and water, So i poured the powder in my mug (I had forgotten a bowl), followed by the special-k cereal, then water. I shook it all up, and tried tp drink it but the milk powder came out as a solid block an hit me in the face, I looked like a ghost (there's a nice disposable camera pic of it). However, every year since Trek, that same crew has thrown me a surprise birthday party, and every year it includes milk powder explosions in some shape or form.  -Nick Bowman

  • Events & other Student Involvement stories:

    • Last year Student Life allowed a group of students to go tour and check out Deep Green the brand new super computer that UVM has and it was a really cool experience to see what where like Blackboard lives and how intricate and delicate all of these things that keep our school afloat really are. -Grace Parker​

    • I took a class my first year being offered by a staff member (Megan Meinen) of student life. This class was in order to become a facilitator at the UVM ropes course. This class was one of my favorite times each week. We would laugh so much as we learned new team building games or ice breakers. This class eventually led me to be able to have a paying job at the ropes course that spring and next fall. The ropes course is one of my favorite places in Burlington!! ~Sarah L

    • My sophomore year I was PR and Marketing Co-chair for RALLYTHON and we had a goal of raising $140,000 for the UVM Children's hospital! The night of the event we all got called in and told we had worked so hard this year but unfortunately we were not going to be able to make our goal. Our advisors wanted us to set a new goal so we would not be disappointed at the end of the 12 hours. So we collected ourselves and went out with energy to still celebrate the money we had raised. Then an hour before our reveal we got called into another meeting telling us we were $200 away from our goal. Flipping over the numbers to reveal over $140,000 that we raised for the children's hospital is a feeling I will never forget. It was really incredible to see what the UVM community can do! -Sarah Ladd

    • When I first transferred to UVM as a junior, the three roommates I was living with at the time were also transfer students. Since it was our first semester at UVM we wanted to take full advantage of all the amazing activities that UVM had to offer during Week of Welcome. My favorite memory of that was when we ended up at the Gutterson gym and they had gym games laid out for us, and these little tricycles that we were riding around the gym. We had a million people ask us if we were freshman, and when they found we were transfers they were so welcoming and nice, introducing themselves, and telling us how to get better acquainted with the school and meeting people -Emily Cajzer

    • my friend is close with a lot of the UPB coordinators and last spring she won the WE talent competition where she lip-synched songs with her mock trial friends and preformed in front of hundreds of people -Grace Budd

​

For more information...

bottom of page