USU College of Arts & Sciences celebrates inaugural ArtSci Week
Last week, Utah State University held its first-ever ArtSci Week, celebrating and sharing work from throughout the newly-organized College of Arts & Sciences. As part of the restructuring of the colleges that occurred last year, the former Caine College of the Arts, College of Humanities and Social Sciences and College of Science were all merged into one large college covering a vast range of programs. This year’s ArtSci Week celebrated students from across its range of studies.
Running from March 23-28, the leadership of the college prepared all year to create what they hoped would be a memorable and meaningful week for ArtSci students. Being the first-ever week dedicated to the new college, the organizers faced some unique challenges during their preparation.
“We’ve been planning pretty much all school year, especially trying to figure out what the best activities are going to be and how to sort of approach this week as the first ArtSci Week,” said Lily Takemoto, Caine College of the Arts senator. “Originally, when we started planning, we were dividing up days and focusing on each individual part of the college. But then, as we moved forward, we realized that’s not what our mission has been throughout the rest of the year.”
A participant in the ArtSci parade dressed as an axolotl walks on campus on March 23.
One of the main focuses for the week was to help grow the sense of community among the college following the chaos of the merger.
“We are a huge college with vast interests and topics that we cover. That’s something that we’re focusing on celebrating this week,” said Breanna Cahoon, College of Science senator. “We want this to be collaborative, and we want everyone to be involved. We had to generalize a little bit in order to represent everyone, but hopefully we will have a better sense of community amongst all the programs.”
Despite the college’s size, an increase in support and help from around the college and its leadership helped make planning the week a possibility, according to Cahoon.
“While we’ve talked about planning with all three councils, there’s also been individual events where delegated councils have planned what they wanted to do,” Cahoon said. “Because there are so many people, allowing a degree of freedom in creative direction amongst each of those councils is helping representation across the college.”
Kicking off Monday with a parade around campus and a party, the college held other events throughout the week, including Soda with Soldiers, ArtSci 20×20, Collage Night, Cereal with the Senators, Networking Night, Scholarship Showcase and the ArtSci Bash, wrapping up with an ArtSciPoBev. Throughout the week, there were also various smaller events, such as snacktivities in the TSC.
“Because it’s our first college week as a merged college, I’m excited to see what new traditions we can make and get people more excited about the college,” Takemoto said.
As the first-ever ArtSci Week, many will remember it as a launching pad for the college going into the future, helping students feel at home and create traditions that will stick with the college.