Student Alumni Association Brings Batman to UAS
Students at packed into the REC on November 15 to enjoy a well-prepared dinner and feast to the sounds of Batman on the big-screen.
By: Hollis Kitchin
This month SAA showed the new Batman movie, accompanied by a buffet of Italian food, including lasagna, garlic bread, Cesar salad, and chicken penne alfredo. At this “Dinner and a Movie,” over 100 students attended along with 20 people not part of the Student Alumni Association.
A small $15 fee charged to every student taking 6 credits or more a semester at the Univeristy of Alaska Southeast here in Juneau, allows entry to the monthly SAA “Dinner and a Movie” event, student also receive one free t-shirt and water bottle each, can attend the annual etiquette dinner for free and get discounts for a variety of off campus programs.
“It's a branch of the regular Alumni Association; normally an alumni association is for people who have graduated from a university, ours is a alumni and friends association actually, so we have people who have graduated and people who are just supporters of the university. In 2003, our director Lynn Johnson came up with this idea that she found out at a conference down south call the ‘Student Alumni Association,’ and the point is to train people while they're still in college to be part of a group,” Keni Campbell, Alumni Relations Manager said.
At least once a month since August, the SAA has provided a dinner and movie catered by Abbie's Catering, for more variety and because most of the SAA events are held at the REC center the association is not required to use NANA as their caterers.
“It gives me something to do in my spare time, a place to hang out with friends, maybe play pool while watching a movie, basically get out of the dorms,” Scott Begins, a Marine Biology major from Soldotna, Alaska expressed.
“I was amazed at how many people showed up, it was about three times as many as usual,” Randi Spray, a student employee with SAA stated. There are 783 members of the Student Alumni Association
Of the initial students charged, only 130 opted out of the payment that would have had to pay to get into the SAA event. Students who live off campus are usually the ones that opt out, along with students who are taking online courses.
“I haven't been to any of the SAA events because I don't live on campus. I almost went to the one last Friday but something else came up. I'm sure if I lived in the dorms and didn't have things I had to do off campus, I'd go to them all the time,” Boni Parker, from Juneau said.
SAA has made donated money to university projects and for the past two years, they have made a donation to TRiO in order to provide bus passes to students within the program.
“We're always looking for fun ideas of things people feel are missing or things that are interesting to this year’s group of people as opposed to last year's group of people because there are always different people around. People are always welcome to our meetings, the first Friday of every month at 1:30 p.m. in the Novatney Conference room,” Campbell urged.
