By: Lexus Partipilo and Grace Soenksen
The University of Wisconsin–Green Bay (UWGB) welcomes students from all areas and provides the resources needed for students to have a beneficial and pleasing experience. A large majority of UWGB’s students are commuters. On the university’s Commuter Student Services website, it is shown that roughly 80% of the university’s student population is made up of commuters. Students choose to commute for various reasons, such as cost-effectiveness, family connections, personal preference, work obligations, and location convenience. No matter their reason, UWGB is here to help commuters and ensure these students are given the same opportunities as residential students, from academic opportunities to student engagement and other campus assistance.
Ben Savage, a commuter student who lived on campus for four years, moved off campus for financial and family-related reasons. Despite living off campus, Savage has maintained connections with peers. Savage reflected, “I tend to show up to my classes a bit early, so I have time to plan for any unexpected delays and time to see friends still and talk to people outside of class.” Like many commuters, Savage’s social interactions and peer collaboration on campus are centered around his academic schedule. However, Savage’s actual campus involvement, such as attending on-campus events and activities hosted by campus organizations, has decreased since commuting. Savage explained, “As a commuter, it’s harder to be aware of events.” Savage suggests that more publicized campus events would help this issue. “When you are on campus, it is easy to see the different posters and opportunities. But as someone who is off campus most of the time, I only see events as they are happening.”
When commuting, it is important for students to also understand the challenges that may follow, such as traffic, communication, weather, financial, and other external factors. Cooper Wild, a commuter student, is a notable example of a commuter who is especially considerate of these obstacles. Wild commutes from Stevens Point, roughly 110 miles away, which is more than an hour and a half drive to campus. This extensive commute requires Wild to thoroughly plan academic and campus engagement activities, “I pretty much have a set schedule every week due to my commute,” Wild shares. Likewise, Wild must maintain clear and precise communication with professors to account for any disruptions that may affect the travel from home to campus, “I think the most important thing is that you have to plan ahead more. I often have to ask my professor’s questions ahead of time.” As a commuter, Wild is not able to attend as many campus events as residential students due to the time required for most campus events. Wild explained, “When activities are scheduled, a lot of it is later in the day, like 6 p.m. or later. For a commuter, going to an event for two hours and then having to drive home at 8 o’clock can be difficult.” Wild suggested that scheduling more events earlier in the day could help improve the involvement of commuter students on campus.
Adam Novotny, assistant director of the Student Engagement Center, has worked to create more opportunities to improve the engagement and initiatives to address concerns and obstacles mentioned by commuters like Savage and Wild. Novotny explained, “For commuter students, we (the university) recognize that they are here during certain times. They may not be spending as much time here on campus, so the time they do spend here is very valuable… We try to accommodate that by doing some things at different times and doing things in different places.” The university has also planned incentives that will give students the opportunity to engage. Some of these include a golf cart that picked commuters up from their car in the parking lot and brought them to class during GB Welcome Week, a Community Org Fair for a day that explored the different businesses and service opportunities in the community, and most recently a cart full of candy and a spin-the-wheel game where students could win prizes to different buildings and lounges on-campus.
One of these resources is the Get Involved section toward the bottom of the Commuter Student Services webpage. This hyperlink brings the student to the student engagement page, where residential and commuter students can view upcoming events on campus, employment, and volunteer opportunities. Phoenix Connect is another resource for commuters to get involved. On the Phoenix Connect app and website, students can see on-campus events in advance, which gives commuters more time to prepare and plan for the event.
The University also utilizes the Phoenix Connect program to track student engagement and event turnouts. The program is paired with the university’s Student Information System (SIS) program. This allows the university to track not only the overall number of students but also the specific number of commuters who attend an event. According to Phoenix Connect, since the start of the semester in September, the university has interacted with about 1,566 commuter students. This averages out to 37 commuters per campus event. Novotny shared, “We’ve been generally pretty happy as far as our numbers go for commuters but knowing too that we still need to reach more commuters because this, of course, is not indicative of all our commuter students so far, and we have plenty to go as far as getting to them.” As the UWGB continues to grow and develop more opportunities for commuters to get involved, it is important for commuter students to know the importance of being on campus. “Commuters sometimes get viewed as a forgotten population. Even during orientation in the summer, we really try to hit home to commuters that they are the majority of students at UWGB… They (the commuters) should feel empowered that they are a strong body of campus, important to campus, and know they are valued every step of the way.”
