The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
Curtis Meyer, Reporter
The Bicknell Center was home to over 70 visitors from 18 different schools, as Pitt State hosted the annual Midwest Association of Colleges and University Resident Halls (MACURH) conference. Students and faculty from a variety of schools of all different sizes attended the event,
MACURH, is a region of the National Association of Colleges and University Resident halls. NACURH was founded in 1954, with it’s mission being to “create environments that empower, motivate, and equip residence hall leaders by providing them with skills and resources in order for them to excel and positively impact their campus communities.”
MACURH is just one of eight regions which make up the National group. Schools ranging from size from Division 1 schools like Missouri State and Iowa University to smaller schools like Truman University make up the MACHURH.
“Iowa is here, University of Nebraska is here, NDSU, that’s where Carson Wentz went. Missouri State’s here, Creighton is here, that’s where the college world series is held. There’s a lot of different schools. It’s a lot of fun, especially hanging out with everybody,” said Bradley Crider, a junior in finance who was volunteering for the event.
The conference took place over three days, from Thursday, Feb. 9th, through Saturday, Feb. 11. The Bicknell’s main auditorium was used for a majority of the events, but there were several speakers, each talking about a different subjects, such as leadership, business, networking, and other useful skills.
“Since I’m part of staff, I got an opportunity to lead a session. Me and two other people, Sky Hagan and Trisha Collins, helped out with a leadership social. All about leadership, what do other institutions do on their campus to help out with leadership, and how to stay in the right mind space to be a student leader,” said Amaya Harris, senior in business management and president of the Resident Hall Assembly (RHA).
“I really loved the aspect of the connection, locally we got a lot of sponsorships for this conference, being able to work with the local businesses and their partnerships was awesome, and just being able to see all the different things come in. Really being able to see the movie play for itself, a lot of it has just been on paper, just hoping for the best, but to actually see it in action, it’s Showtime,” said Harris.
Showtime was the theme of this year’s conference, putting a spotlight on the Midwest Region’s mascot, Molly the Moo Cow.
The process of hosting one of these conferences is a long and arduous process.
First, a school or multiple schools will put in a bid to host the yearly conference, usually a couple years in advance. They have to write out large plans, outlining how there school would be able to handle and direct the event, as well as accounting for hotel rooms and conference space. While the event is going on, every current member in leadership must run again for reelection, presenting themselves in front of the entire delegation and explaining why they would be a good fit for the job.
“There was a girl, she was running for the ADF position, so it was like the administration finance position, I’m a finance major, so I was listening to what she was talking about, and she seemed more knowledgeable than the majority of people who had taught me before, so I thought that was pretty cool,” said Crider.
The conference was not all about business, however.
“I’d say my favorite part was the opening ceremony, because I got to dance around on stage and talk, it was pretty fun. There’s some really cool people here and they are very knowledgeable on different things,” said Crider.