While people were attending Homecoming events, congratulating the new Homecoming King and Queen and celebrating the Homecoming win, 10 students represented the university at a conference hosted by Southwest Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls.
On Oct. 20-23, these 10 students travelled to the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas for the 36th annual conference that was themed “Find Your Beat.”
“The purpose of the conference was to allow for us to learn more about programming within the residence halls at other universities and to also share some of the things we do here at Southeastern with other universities,” said DeQuaz Humphries, a junior psychology major.
Humphries is a Resident Assistant 1 who is also the Fundraising Chair for the Residence Hall Association. Along with Humphries, the nine other students selected to attend were Caroline Abadie, Katie Abadie, Kristen Calfee, Scott Cooper, Paul Haddican, Calyn Landaiche, Kirsten LeCompte, Kristen Stamp and Ildefonso Vasquez.
While attending the conference, these students took part in competitions including a roll call competition.
“Hearing that Southeastern won roll call at the awards ceremony was nothing short of amazing,” said Humphries. “This showed that Southeastern has the ability to produce work that is just as good as other larger universities and that we have the commitment and dedication to make it happen. Our roll call included really cool dancing and a lot of voice-overs on various songs. Some of the songs used were ‘One Dance’ by Drake, ‘Formation’ by Beyoncé and ‘Back that Thang up’ by Juvenile.”
Not only did the students win roll call, but they also won various other competitions.
“We also participated in the banner competition, a display competition and the spirit competition,” said Humphries. “We won the spirit stick more than any other delegation, which led to us winning the chant battle champions award. We received a check for winning a scholarship award before even actually attending the conference, and my partner Fonz and I won the top 10 program award among all delegates that presented at the conference.”
Humphries not only learned of the many awards that he and his fellow representatives won, but he also learned a valuable lesson.
“One of the big things I learned was that it’s okay to ask for help,” said Humphries. “A program at SWACURH that was presented by a delegate addressed this issue. They had ubiquitous amounts of important information on why it’s okay to not know the solution to everything.”
One thing Humphries enjoyed most was the people who he attended the trip with.
“My favorite part about the conference was being able to be around my great group of fellow delegates,” said Humphries. “They made the trip worthwhile.”