As a campus, Wittenberg has a culture of involvement. There are so many programs planned by numerous student organizations, as well as departments every week. However, there are not a lot of programs happening over the weekend, therefore leaving a huge amount of students feeling like they don’t have much to do. Nationally, campuses have implemented alternative alcohol programming to reduce binge drinking and high-risk behaviors, specifically on Saturday evenings, but we didn’t have anything like that.

Halfway through the semester of Fall 2017, the Associate Director of Student Involvement Kevin Carey took the initiative and formed the Witt Late Night Student Advisory Team, consisting of student leaders from various organizations on campus, as well as staff members from the Office of Student Involvement. Witt Late Night’s goal is to host exciting monthly events from 8 p.m.-1 a.m. on Saturday nights, filling the gap in programming during that particular time frame and providing late night snacks, as well.

Working closely with campus staff, each member of the team is placed into three groups: Logistics, Marketing and Entertainment/Activities. The entire team strives to bring to campus unique activities that we have not had at many events before.
Personally, I’m on the Marketing team, in which I design posters/graphics for social media, as well a Snapchat filter for each of the events. Along with that, everyone in our group also takes over the university’s Snapchat and Witts Happening Instagram page in order to maximize the outreach of our event. I wouldn’t have known about this advisory team if I weren’t working with Kevin beforehand during New Student Days in which I served as an Orientation Assistant. I’m super excited to be a part of this new initiative that we brought to campus!

We’ve successfully hosted three events featuring activities like a glow rave, Battleships, a dodgeball tournament, curling, and mini golf as well, all while providing food with the participation of more than 100+ students for each event. On March 17, we will host a late night program in which we’ll have three escape rooms in our Student Center, a roller rink in the HPER and a special edition of Trivia in Founders Pub. We will also have several food options for each hour from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.

As we think about the upcoming 2018-2019 academic year, the Witt Late Night Student Advisory Team is planning to host four events each semester on Saturdays. If you’re interested in being part of a growing campus initiative, please stop by the Office of Student Involvement to talk to the staff and get some more information.

Hai Vo ’20
Major: Computer Science & Data Science
Hometown: Pleiku, Vietnam