High attendance, fancy cheese, and two hours of mingling last week started the 2015 Spring Semester in true Colorado College fashion.
The Butler Center, Dean of the Faculty, and the Dean of Students hosted an All-Campus Mixer last Thursday, Jan. 29, that garnered high acclaim from staff, students, and faculty alike.
Assistant Vice President and Director of the Butler Center Paul Buckley was pleased not only with the turnout, but also the authentic exchange happening between various persons associated with Colorado College.
“Several folks said to me that it was so nice to have an event that does not have an agenda except to just get together and be together and connect,” said Buckley. “And I think that’s a beautiful thing to do. That’s important for our work to help build community.”
Ideas for an All-Campus Mixer came to fruition after the Butler Center reviewed the information collected from their focus groups last year and noticed a desire from students for more interaction and connection between students, staff, and faculty.
In the past, the Butler Center has hosted an internal mixer for students who have been actively engaged with the Center. An All-Campus Mixer is part of the initiative by the office to cultivate an inclusive campus community.
“How nice is it to walk into a space that has invited you in and where at a micro-level, you feel a sense of inclusion,” said Buckley. “I think it was a very great symbolic event for that aspirational community that we want to have everywhere across campus.”
The Butler Center Intern Grace Montesano (’17) agreed with Paul Buckley in the importance and success of the mixer.
“It fits in with our mission with the transition from OMIS to the Butler Center,” said Montesano. “Our focus is still on the communities we serve, but also expanding our outreach so that we can also involve the rest of campus in conversations that need to happen [and] really just help create a better campus for everyone.”
There are plans to install the All-Campus Mixer as an annual event, but Buckley invites students to engage with the Butler Center in more events besides just the mixer.
“I think all events ought to create that sense of ‘I belong here,’” said Buckley. “Even if ‘I belong here’ to engage in an uncomfortable conversation, or to challenge my beliefs, my thoughts, what I thought I knew. But ‘I belong’ in this conversation.”
Buckley invites anyone who has any ideas that would enhance the Butler Center or anything innovative that has not yet been done to come and share with the Butler Center staff.