SCOPE volunteer Qin Caldwell ’24 makes popcorn in preparation for Harvest Fest, a SCOPE event, on October 17.
By Lucy LaPlaca ’26 and Emily Scandrett ’26
Students looking for activities to participate in on weekends are in luck: the Student Committee on Programming and Engagement (SCOPE) works hard to plan weekly events for students to participate in.
SCOPE was formerly known as the Committee on Student Activities (COSA), whose primary goal is to run the club proposal process and support clubs. Throughout Covid-19, COSA student leader Selam Olson ’24 and Director of Student Activities Ms. Alex Long discussed how the organization could do more to build community on campus. They then created what students know as SCOPE today.
“[We] renamed it [and] gave them more responsibilities, primarily the increase of planning events,” Assistant Director of Student Activities Ms. Colleen Kazar said. “We wanted to make SCOPE an organization that students would come to if they had ideas.”
The group is made up of two faculty advisers, Ms. Long and Ms. Kazar. There are also 12 student members, three of whom are executive board members, each responsible for a different aspect of student activities.
Club Chair Leyee Dai ’24 manages all 85 clubs on campus, offering support to student leaders and ensuring that clubs have all the resources they need to execute events. Media Chair Selam Olson ’24 is in charge of advertising school events around campus and posting content on SCOPE’s Instagram account (@choatescope). Events Chair Brecken Cullinan ’24 brainstorms and plans all the Student Activities Center (SAC) weekend events. The other SCOPE members assist the chairs in their tasks.
SCOPE differs from COSA in that the group collaborates with the school community and takes student opinions into account. “We talk amongst each other in the teams about new ideas and what events people have liked, what events people haven’t liked, and how we can fix stuff,” Olson said. This new planning process allows the team of students and advisers to evaluate the events they are organizing and make improvements accordingly.
A multitude of changes and advancements to media and marketing have also been made in an attempt to make the student body more aware of SCOPE’s role on campus. Olson mentioned that the media team will continue to grow through “using other platforms and [connecting] with the students in different ways that will make kids more interested.” One such platform is the new Scope It Out newsletter, a “reincarnation” of the old weekly Boarcast email, intended to keep students informed about events happening over the weekends.
After a year-long hiatus, SCOPE is opening up club proposal applications this winter. SCOPE is also working on starting a new volunteering program where students can get a blue card for helping to set up SCOPE events.
