When the class of 2015 gathers in the St. Thomas University courtyard to graduate, Justin Creamer wants the group to have a strong bond.
The first-year student from Miramichi was elected as the university’s first-year liaison in the STU students’ union’s fall election.
Although he hasn’t been on the job long – he doesn’t even have access to his STUSU email account yet – Creamer is full of ideas about how to get everyone in his graduating class involved in the school.
“One of the big issues I find is that we do welcome week and we do get to meet people, but then it kind of breaks down to wing bonding,” he said.
“I was thinking to myself, why does it have to stop there? Why can’t we do more first-year bonding as a group?”
The Chatham Hall resident envisions having mixers or coffeehouses in James Dunn Hall, events where people can mingle, but aren’t necessarily forced into participating into activities they’re not interested in.
“There are some people who just want to socialize with other first years and can’t find the right situation to, because either you’re grouped together by your house or little groups get formed between friends.”
All of STU’s welcome week events are dry and while Creamer is open to pushing for a wet/dry event for first years, he doesn’t want first years to avoid events just because they’re dry.
“I know there are some people who will [drink] even though it’s supposed to be a dry event…but if you go there dry and even though you’re nervous, there’s a lot of other people who are nervous too,” he said.
“I know there are some people who are only exclusively dry and for those people, I will try to do something for you.”
At the end of the year, Creamer would like to hold another mixer for first-year students to catch up and share what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown throughout the year.
But Creamer’s job isn’t limited to planning events for his peers.
He also must represent STU’s 675 first-year students around the STUSU table and inform them about STUSU services.
A lot of these students aren’t aware about what’s going on around campus, Creamer said, using the fall STUSU election as an example. Only 11.9 per cent of students from all years turned out to vote.
In the future, Creamer plans to inform first-year students about events like elections by word of mouth.
“The best way I can do that is try to get the word around. Sometimes you just see the poster and you just walk by it,” he said.
His approach to informing students about STUSU services, like SafeRide or SafeWalk, is similar.
He plans to bring the people behind those services to each residence, so new students can meet the people operating them.
“Part of the thing is you don’t know who’s on the other side and it does make you nervous.
“If you can just try to let them know about the services and introduce them to the people who do the service, that might comfort them a little bit.”
Creamer remembers being overwhelmed when he first came to STU last month.
Part of his strategy as first-year liaison is to be available to those who may be nervous in their new environment.
“I know what it’s like to think you have a voice but you really don’t.
“I will try my best to get the voices out there, even the [voices of] people who are kind of nervous to go up to the first-year rep.”
Justin Creamer can be reached at [email protected].
