A new university-wide committee with the goal of uniting the student body and creating massive events for students is becoming a reality more than a year after it was first discussed.
“I’m very proud of this,” former Polytechnic campus President Dominick Hernandez said. “All we did was come up with an idea and reach out to the student body and help facilitate. … We’re all Sun Devils. We’re all ASU students. Now we’re working as a cohesive body for the first time.”
Created by Hernandez and USGD President Joseph Grossman, the University Spirit, Pride and Tradition committee will connect clubs from across all ASU campuses to foster ideas and pool resources.
USPT’s first major event will be on April 19, when members of the committee and other organizations will host a “Movie on the Field,” Hernandez said. The event will take place at Sun Devil Stadium following Pigskinpalooza, where students can play football with members of the ASU football team.
Grossman said the expected turnout for the event jumped from 300 to 3,000 because of the new committee becoming involved, and Hernandez said he would like to see the entire stadium full for events in the future.
“In five years, I want it completely maroon and gold,” Hernandez said. “I want to see every event have a sheer amount of participation just because it is an ASU event.”
USPT has drummed up support from key players on all campuses, including the Programming and Activities Board, the Student Alumni Association, the Residence Hall Association and the Undergraduate Student Government, and continues to expand its numbers as regular students and leaders from other organizations join, Downtown Vice President of Services David Bakardjiev said.
Initial meetings for the committee were pan-campus, addressing leaders from the four campuses at the same time, Bakardjiev said. The vice presidents of services on each campus will serve as the head of local board meetings intended to serve the unique needs of the four campuses.
The Downtown campus will hold its first local board meeting Friday, Bakardjiev said.
“I’m just introducing the concept to all the major organizations, but all the other organizations are allowed to come. I opened the invitation to everyone,” he said.
Bakardjiev said his outreach to PAB, RHA, Downtown student government and community assistants will create a foundation for the committee on the Downtown campus.
“We’re going to talk about how we can make this grow,” he said. “With them on board, all the others will follow. We want to start small and get big.”
Grossman said the importance of having an organization like USPT is the focus on the bigger picture.
“Most clubs and organizations think micro-ly,” he said. “They’re not thinking about the whole university; they’re thinking about that one club or that one organization.”
Although USPT is organized as a department, the committee functions as a grassroots, student-run initiative to coalesce the efforts of many separate clubs into a single, unified voice, Grossman said.
USPT will have an open retreat on April 15 to discuss leadership and put the finishing touches on its structure, Hernandez said.
“Overall, it’s a historic change,” Grossman said. “Dr. (Michael) Crow came in really preaching his New American University model — one university in many places … this is a very good example of that.”
For Hernandez, the effects of school spirit, such as atmosphere on campus or excitement in the student section of a game, have a tangible and important impact on student success.
“All of this,” Hernandez said of school spirit, “translates into our academic success, our college experience, to finding jobs after college and achieving our goals.”
While he was president, Hernandez spearheaded the push to increase student engagement and improve the state of school spirit at ASU. His original organization, the Student Spirit Committee, took a cross-section of various student organizations to improve school spirit through attendance and excitement about sporting events.
A year later, Hernandez was called upon by the Presidents Council, the presidents of the four campuses and GPSA, to expand his work into a broader push for school spirit as the head of the newly created University Spirit, Pride and Tradition committee.
“Athletics were the lowest hanging fruit,” Grossman said. “We wanted to incorporate other aspects of school spirit.”
Grossman has worked with Hernandez on the structure of the new committee since its first meeting in early November last year. Originally called the ASU Spirit Club, USPT is the first organization to bring together leaders of across all four campuses for a unified goal of improving school spirit, Grossman said.
James Rund, senior vice president for Educational Outreach and Student Services, said the leaders involved in USPT have done an excellent job of bringing together long-standing organizations that have traditionally not worked together.
Rund said the goals of USPT align well with the overarching goals of the university.
“We have been at work for the past two years to increase and enhance the sense of spirit and pride that we as an institution have and that we project into the community,” he said.
Contact the reporter at mauro.whiteman@asu.edu.
