Student Organization Services office in the Student Union. Photo by Taylor Heckart
Those who participate in UAA’s clubs and student organizations may be familiar with UAA Life. It is UAA’s system for managing student organizations.
However this year there will be a change. Shelby Krieigh, student organization coordinator, said that UAA’s contract with the service is expiring, and UAA will be using a new system in the fall.
Kriegh said that the previous system wasn’t used for much beyond club registration and requests to use money, and that it was pretty dated.
The new system — which currently doesn’t yet have a UAA-themed name —is provided through an organization called CampusGroups.
It’s meant to be a “one stop shop” to connect students with all of the resources they need, said Kriegh.
She recognized that UAA students have a lot of different online systems they have to navigate during their time at UAA. There’s already UAOnline, Navigate and DegreeWorks, and Kriegh wants the new system to be able to connect students to all of these UAA resources in addition to club information.
The CampusGroups system is able to do more than just provide important forms for student clubs. The system is available both online and through an app, and provides chat and email options for club communications.
Kriegh said it also provides storage options, so clubs will no longer have to use Google Drive to share important club documents.
“Instead of having those GroupMe’s and trying to figure out different ways to communicate, not only with students outside of your organization but even just internal communication … I am hoping that clubs move to use this as their sole platform because it is so accessible with the app and online version,” said Kriegh.
Kriegh said that this new system should be more user-friendly than the old one, and training videos will exist for students to learn how to navigate it.
Student Organization Services is still working on putting together the system, but Kriegh said that the goal is to get it up and running by August 1 so that student clubs have time to register before the semester starts. She said August 1 is an ambitious goal, but it has to be ready by mid to late August before classes start.
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