Lucas Heiberger is a few months into his current position as Northwestern’s Interim Director of Student Programs. In this position, he has taken on the role of leading the Student Activities Council (SAC) to get students around campus involved in different ways. Julie Elliott, vice president for student life, reached out to Heiberger this past summer to offer him this position which he started in June 2021. Since then, the interim portion of his title has been dropped.
Heiberger graduated from NW in 2018 with a major in public relations. After college, he served as an admissions counselor for two years prior to being offered the role of admissions marketing and event strategist which he held for a year. As the admission marketing and event strategist, Heiberger worked closely with Aaron Beadner, then director of student programs. Alongside Beadner and the SAC team, Heiberger helped plan events on campus for the prospective students to be involved with and experience NW’s community while building relationships with current students.
As a student, Heiberger was involved with the SAC team for a couple years as well as being a resident assistant during his junior year. While serving as a RA, he had the opportunity to improve wing events and planned many activities within the residence life circles. His proudest creation so far has been the Hospers Video Game Tournament (HVGT) which has long outlived his time in the dorms and will be held for the eighth year this spring. Each year, the HVGT tradition is continued by a current Hospers resident. This year, sophomore, Gideon Fynaardt is heading up the event.
Heiberger enjoys interacting with NW students again, claiming he did not realize how much he missed it until he took on the role as the director of student programs.
His favorite part of SAC is having the opportunity to create fun events for students to participate in because “it’s like giving people an opportunity to make a lifelong memory” which he finds very rewarding.
This year, we can expect to see a combination of both old and new events including the Club at the Hub dance in January, Battle of the Bands in February and Medieval Madness Weekend in April. This will consist of different medieval themed events kicking off with Fort Wars on Friday, the Battle of the Mighty Floyd on Saturday and the Hospers Battle to close out the weekend. The Battle of the Mighty Floyd is an old NW tradition Heiberger is bringing back where students spend the semester building boats to race down the river. He also has a long list of new events for the upcoming school year including one big secret event he’s been dying to share for months.
The SAC team has already planned and hosted several events this semester including the Clash of Classes: Luau Edition, a trip to the Siouxnami waterpark, an outdoor karaoke night, the homecoming spirit week themes and dance, tournamania and the Windmill Kart live action Mario Kart.
The future of SAC might look a little bit different as they will begin looking to hire a few paid positions for the spring semester as some current team members will be graduating or studying abroad. Students interested in this opportunity should keep their eyes peeled for upcoming applications.
Current SAC team member, Aaron Eckmann, has been very impressed with Heiberger’s changes this year in finding more ways for student volunteers to become involved in putting on the events. This has attracted a lot of fun loving and energetic people who bring a new level of excitement to the events. Eckmann appreciates how much work Heiberger has been putting into the council and coming up with “new creative ideas to engage people” as well as “creating new modes of communication to make a bigger production.”
