The Student Government Association (SGA) has been hard at work improving student life this year. They organized the free Raider Rally towels and pushed to have coat hooks put up in the cafeteria lobby. Currently they are in the process of launching the Raider Cup.
“The Raider Cup is going to be an ongoing process to get more students involved through monitoring student attendance and awarding students via sweet prizes for how many events they attend on campus,” said Student Body President Taylor Hoekstra.
The Raider Cup is an incentive designed to encourage studnets to become more involved in Northwestern campus events.
“The purpose of the Raider Cup is to get studentsexcited about athletic events and theatrical productions and to attend more campus events,” said SGA Secretary junior Megan Hutson.
SGA has been in the process of refining the Raider Cup since the end of last semester and anticipates it beginning sometime this week. There will be an SGA member at events who will be giving out tickets to attending students.
According to sophomore SGA treasurer Logan Gooch, who initiated the idea of the Raider Cup, those tickets will then be added up on each wing or floor, and through those point values prizes will be given to students who are on those residence life wings or floors.
Through the implementation of the Raider Cup, SGA hopes to increase the level of student engagement in all areas on campus.
“I feel like student involvement in events is pretty shallow all across the board,” Hoekstra said. “This is something we can do to get students involved and to see how fun it is to be more involved in sports, theatre, art or whatever it is.”
Building camaraderie on campus is one of SGA’s main goals.
“It (the Raider Cup) brings everybody together and creates the community that NW talks about,” said freshman representative Brody Van Roekel. “When you get everyone together it’s just a lot of fun. Go crazy and cheer on classmates.”
“Wednesday at the Dordt game tons of people came out, and I think similar crowds can be built because of this,” Gooch said.
SGA’s hope is that the Raider Cup will build excitement for each event and cause students to become more enthusiastic overall about supporting fellow students.
“It’s just another way to get students involved and help them see how important it is to support each other in all areas,” Hutson said.
So if you are wondering about whether or not to attend the next campus event, don’t debate, just go. You may end up with awesome prizes for simply attending.
“I’d like to see students get involved in events on campus and support everyone we can,” Gooch said. “We have really good teams on campus that we’re really lucky to have. We need to support the things we have. So get out there.”
