For Bluffton University, Marbeck Center Board is the main event planning group on campus that is meant to build community among students. This group is student-led and has been led by chairperson Bri Baker for two years and is advised by Kevin White.
Marbeck Center Board chair, Bri Baker. Photo by Olivia Westcott.
Bri Baker has been a part of MCB since the second half of her sophomore year. Going into her junior year, the group began nominating and recommending people to fill the position of chair.
“We do have a process, they have to be nominated first by a fellow member and then voted on,” said White. “For Bri the vote was unanimous, that was her junior year, her first year as chairperson. And then, she was nominated again, and the vote was unanimous again. She is our first two-year chairperson in a very, very long time.”
Some of Baker’s duties as chair are keeping in contact with the business office about money the group has spent or will need for an event, advertising for events and keeping in contact with contracted events, like axe throwing, or with any special group/person that would be coming on campus.
MCB events are being held online as part of campus-wide strategies to reduce opportunities for the spread of COVID-19. This has caused additional responsibilities for Baker, such as ensuring equipment is working and the internet is good.
Baker is in charge of helping organize the catering with in-person events. The catering at in-person events has pre-packaged food handed out by gloved members of MCB to attendees.
Baker said being chair can be very time-consuming since there are multiple aspects one has to think about when planning an event, but it is overall fun to do.
“I like being at events and being able to plan events where 100 people come,” said Baker, “My favorite event is karaoke and fro-yo because people literally just have a blast. I guess just seeing the events come together as a whole is a lot of fun and just seeing people enjoy it.”
MCB prioritizes reaching out to as many students as possible with the events they hold, Baker said. They never want to do the same thing and get the same students every time.
“We just want the focus to be on the students as much as possible,” said White. “In reality, I can pretend like I know what students want, but Bri has the closer connection to the students and can better represent what kind of events they want here on campus.”
A lot of brainstorming is done by MCB to come up with new events that will reach every student, said Baker. She said they watch the reactions students have to the events held to get an idea of what works.
“I don’t think students realize how much planning and effort goes into events, so it’s kind of nice to see all the other members of MCB working hard to put on all the cool events and seeing them happy that things came together,” said Baker.
MCB has 19 members this year, and Baker said in the past years there were between 10 and 12. She said the growth is nice, which means more help is available to plan and host events.
Baker said students should work for MCB because it is fun to know about the events being held and attend them. She said she has met people through MCB from being a part of it whom she wouldn’t have met otherwise.
Baker said being a part of MCB has helped improve her organizational skills as well as prepared her for professional work in the future.
“I feel like it has prepared me for a lot of things that I will have to deal with in the work environment, like working with others, making sure I have every little detail planned out and having stuff ready when I need to have it ready,” said Baker.
