When I applied to be president of Illinois State University’s student chapter of the Association for Women in Communications, I knew the amount of responsibility I was taking on, but I had no idea the challenges myself and my executive board would face. After being chosen as president for Fall 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, I assumed everything would be back to normal by the time we returned to campus in early August. However, the abrupt closing of campus in the spring was soon followed by a summer of uncertainty and a fall semester unlike one we had ever seen.
As a majority of classes were transitioned online, social distancing guidelines were put in place, and the available space in on-campus buildings dwindled, we made the tough, but the necessary and safe decision to move our chapter’s meetings to an online format. Though switching to an online format would allow us to have weekly meetings virtually, we still faced many obstacles in recruiting new members, maintaining current members, and creating a virtual space that would replicate the feelings of belonging, unity, and friendship that come with being involved in an on-campus, student organization.
Planning, emails, and Zoom. That was what our next few weeks would look like. As myself, my fellow exec board members, and our faculty advisors began to plan, one thing was clear, we were going to make the most out of this less than ideal situation. We began brainstorming meeting ideas, social events, and philanthropy that we could partake in virtually, and before we knew it, we had planned as normal a semester as we could hope for. With our social media chairs working twice as hard to promote AWC to potential members, we began to see incoming freshman, new transfers, and even returning students reaching out and expressing interest in joining our organization. COVID-19 may have taken away our ability to see each other face-to-face, but it also allowed us to get creative and learn to adapt in the face of hardship.
In fact, having virtual meetings has allowed us to expand and try many things that we may have never thought of or been able to before. For instance, because we usually host our meetings on campus in Normal, IL, we are usually limited to only having speakers present at our meetings that are from the central Illinois area, but now that our meetings are virtual, we can have speakers from virtually anywhere. This opens up the door to a whole new, diverse pool of speakers for us to reach out to present at one of our meetings. Additionally, it allows us to have presentations on a wider variety of subjects, which also allows us to appeal to the interests of more students. Meeting virtually also makes our meetings more accessible for students who may not have been able to attend in the past. Now, students who live and/or work further away from campus and the Bloomington-Normal area will have an easier time attending meetings.
As a graduating senior, I never thought this is what being chapter president during my final semester of undergrad would look like, but in a weird way, it’s all working out. Our executive board has been able to come together to create what we believe will be a great semester for our members, and though we would rather meet face-to-face, for now, we will make the most out of webcam-to-webcam.
About the Author
Emily Deppermann is a senior at Illinois State University. She is currently the Website Design and Development Chair, as well as the Co-Social Media Chair for Illinois State University’s Association for Women in Communications (AWC) student chapter. She will graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Relations in December 2020. After graduation, Emily plans on attending graduate school, and one day, she hopes to work in public relations for a publishing company.
