With outside grouping limited due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Center for Student Development & Campus Activities  (SDCA) at Pleasantville plans to host its first Virtual Involvement Fair to allow students to meet with representatives from multiple student-run organizations all while following safety precautions. 

During the fall semester, the Involvement Fair was held in-person outdoors on the Pleasantville campus. The good weather conditions and abundance of physical space allowed students to walk freely while wearing face coverings. The one day fair was transformed into an Involvement Week  for social distancing and limited capacity.

However, with the spring semester’s cold weather and outside gathering limits held to 20 compared to the 50 in the fall; SDCA plans to host the event virtually following in the footsteps of the NYC campus.

On  Feb. 11, Pace’s NYC campus held their second Virtual Campus Activities Fair for the school year. The virtual fair was held on an integrated Zoom platform which partners with SetterSync, Pace’s student engagement platform where campus wide announcements are uploaded.  

Shawn Livingston, the interim director for the SDCA,  confirms that both campuses work together to plan events; his expectation is to receive feedback on how the NYC students interacted with the virtual fair. Livingston doesn’t want to burden student organizations to prepare for an event that students won’t attend.

“We’ve set tentative dates for us to use the same platform here in Pleasantville for the tail-end of next week or for the following,” Livingston says. “We’ve set it up for mid to late February.”

Livingston explains that when the student joins the fair they will first be greeted with the SDCA team in the welcome space and will have the ability to join any group of their interest through a breakout room. The student can then leave that group, go back to the main session and join another break out room of their choosing. 

With 15 fraternity and sorority chapters and more than 50 student organizations, Livingston understands that there might not be enough time for a student to visit every group of their interest. He promotes the idea of splitting the Virtual Involvement Fair into two days. If there is an overwhelming amount of group responses,  his team might split the fair into three.   

“If you want to experience multiple groups but you only have 25 minutes in your calendar you can plug in both days,” Livingston says. “As long as students are available to attend, we can do as many virtual fair days as needed.”   

Even though virtual isn’t his preference, Livingston’s top priority is being able to connect students with opportunity. His team ran just shy of 300 programs in the fall with 97 being in person, which is almost one or two programs each day for the 3-month semester. He believes that events like this one will engage students in a social way that includes a basis of curriculum.

One student who is looking forward to the virtual fair is Sanub Sinclair, a junior, who is a member of Phi Sigma Beta, a fraternity at Pace. He shares how eager he is to register his fraternity to possibly gain new members. 

“I think it’s a perfect way to promote my frat to other Pace students,” Sinclair says. “The goal is for recruitment. With the cold and Covid, no one wants to be outside so virtual is the best option.” 

 To keep up to date with events occurring at Pace, Livingston urges students to check SetterSync frequently or to download the SetterSync app, Corq, to be well connected with our various student groups.