Activities & Organizations
Being involved in campus life is a great way to enhance friendships, make new connections, and build a community on campus. Whether you are joining a club, connecting with friends through UArtist Pen Pals, participating in Emerging Leaders or helping to welcome students as a First Year Guide, there are multiple ways to make life-long connections. We have over 30 clubs and organizations, tons of events and activities that focus on many different areas of interest, leadership programs, student leader positions and so much more.
UArts is home to over 30 clubs and organizations that are just as creative as our students. There's something for everyone including visual arts, music, performing arts, advocacy and more.
Community Channels are virtual groups hosted by student leaders that bring people together based on common identities and shared interests. These groups will meet weekly throughout the semester and will get to fellowship with one another while building meaningful relationships!
To ensure the integrity of these spaces, we ask that you only join the channels if you identify as a member of that specific community. We’ve listed our Community Channel offerings below. Find out when they meet by checking the Student Activities tile on the UArts App.
Community Channels: Identity Based
Asian Pacific American/Asian Pacific Islander Students:
This virtual Community Channel provides space for students who are Asian Pacific American and Asian Pacific Islander. Join the conversation to discuss and celebrate racial/ethnic specific experiences while building relationships with others!
Black Students:
This virtual Community Channel provides space specifically for Black students. Join the conversation to share, discuss, and celebrate lived experiences while also establishing relationships with peers!
Class of 2021:
This virtual Community Channel is for all members of the Class of 2021! Connect with your fellow graduating students, chat about your experiences and reminisce! This Community Channel is open to all members of the Class of 2021, including Spring Graduates, and Graduate students.
Faith and Spirituality:
This virtual Community Channel provides space for all faith-based and spiritual identities. Join the conversation to share and learn about others and available resources to affirm your practices.
First-Year Students:
This virtual Community Channel is specially for First-Year students to meet their peers and share unique experiences. Join the conversation to expand your network of artists while connecting with other first-year students!
Latinx Students:
This Community Channel provides space specifically for Latinx students. Join the conversation to share, discuss, and celebrate lived experiences while establishing relationships with peers!
Native American/Indigenous Students:
This virtual Community Channel creates a space for students to celebrate, honor, and explore their indigenous and/or Native American heritage. Join the conversation to share, discuss, and celebrate lived experiences with peers!
Neurodiversity and Accessibility:
This virtual Community Channel provides space for students with both invisible and visible disabilities to feel empowered and comfortable before arriving on campus. Join the conversation to meet other students as well as learn about accommodation and accessibility resources.
Queer, Trans, and Non-Binary Students:
This Community Channel provides space for Queer, Trans, and Non-Binary students. Join the conversation to learn about navigating UArts and LGBTQ+ resources while building relationships with peers!
Community Channels: Interest Based
This virtual Community Channel provides space for artists in different disciplines and majors to come together and collaborate. Join the conversation to extend your network across several different majors and brainstorm creative collaborative projects.
Wellness
This Community Channel is intentionally designed to help students practice wellness. Join us to engage in conversations and practices that prioritizes your well-being in all tenets of life.
Join Alan Price and Caitlin Perkins from the Center for immersive Media (CIM) for this 8-week program that will explore collaboration in virtual environments and ways that artists and designers are using VR in studio practice. Weekly sessions consist of demonstration and participation in VR chat rooms and multiplayer VR applications alongside discussions about the variety of approaches to making and designing in a virtual studio environment.
For students who join the Cyber Studio and are interested, CIM will also be offering an opportunity to participate in a small VR production team. More details will be shared about this opportunity in Cyber Studio!
Interested in leadership? Want to hone your own leadership skills? Emerging Leaders is a program that is designed to help you learn more about yourself, your leadership strengths and develop skills that will help you be more confident and successful in whatever you decide to pursue on or off campus. Emerging Leaders has two parts: 1) Emerging Leaders and 2) Emerging Leaders: Leadership in Practice, and both are offered virtually in the Spring 2021 semester.
Emerging Leaders
Emerging Leaders is part one of the program. It is an 8-week discussion and activity based program that invites you to learn about the five exemplary practices of leadership, explore your leadership strengths, and discover the infinite styles and forms that leadership takes. Upon successful completion of the course, students receive a leadership certificate.
Emerging Leaders meets Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. or Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. EST via Zoom starting the first week of classes.
Emerging Leaders: Leadership in Practice
Graduates of Emerging Leaders are then invited to participate in Emerging Leaders: Leadership in Practice which is an 8-week program. Through this program, students are invited to put what they learned in Emerging Leaders into practice as they develop their own leadership projects geared towards the UArts community. The course also builds upon students’ current leadership skills like time management and conflict resolution. Graduates of this program receive a second leadership certificate.
Emerging Leaders: Leadership in Practice meets Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. EST via Zoom starting the first week of classes.
Why Participate in the Emerging Leaders Program?
There are many reasons students participate in Emerging Leaders, and we ask students every year what they've gained from participating in the program. They always cite the same few reasons. Participating helps them:
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Create community at UArts and expand their networks
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Learn from various perspectives and gain exposure to new ideas
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Build confidence
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See themselves as a leader and want to take on a leadership role at UArts
From our perspective, we host Emerging Leaders because studies have shown that the more involved a student is on campus, and the more they contribute to the campus community, the better they do academically, the more likely they are to graduate, and the more satisfied they are with their educational experience.
Our data shows that students who participate in Emerging Leaders have higher GPAs than the overall UArts GPA, are more likely to persist and graduate from UArts, and are much more likely to take on a student leader role such as Resident Assistant, First Year Guide, or Community Assistant.
Interested in honing in on your allyship and advocacy? Join the Social Justice Leadership program!
The Social Justice Leadership program is an 8-week experience that empowers students to engage in socially conscious leadership as a means to promote equity and achieve justice. Through this program, students will explore systemic oppression, power and privilege, and culture and identity while applying these concepts to their leadership development.
Social Justice Leadership meets Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. or Fridays at 2:30 p.m. EST via Zoom starting the first week of classes.
This eight-week program will explore the many dimensions of experimental cinema and its impact on art and culture. Open to all students and led by the Lightbox Film Center, discussions will highlight a variety of makers and modes associated with moving image art from the 20th century to the present.
This program is hosted on Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. EST beginning Jan. 27.
Whether it's music videos, TV, podcasts, or prints - pop culture has long been a tool for political and social propaganda. This Just In! discusses the latest in pop culture and the power it has for social change!
Join us for discussions are we dissect music, films, podcasts, and more from a social justice point of view!
This Just In! meets Thursdays at 3:00 p.m. EST via Zoom starting the first week of classes.
Join the University Galleries team members and guests each week to investigate different aspects of what it takes to run an exhibition space. Open to all students, this program invites students to explore a variety of topics and meet artists and curators. We’ll kick it off with a conversation with UArts curator Sid Sachs and artist Alex da Corte who reimagined Chicken at UArts last spring. We’ll touch on topics relevant to the formal white cube space and to the artist collective space. Students will meet the folks who plan exhibitions at local spaces including Vox Populi and Space 1026, and international curator Jose Roca who is planning the Sydney Biennial. Together we’ll explore the inner workings of the modern gallery. This program meets weekly on Thursdays starting January 28th at 4:00 p.m. EST.
For the 2020-2021 academic year, make sure you’re staying connected and involved keeping up with what is happening virtually! Take a look at the ways you can stay informed about everything that’s happening virtually this fall at UArts.
Student Activities Tile on the UArts App
Head to the Student Activities tile on the UArts App to see a listing of all upcoming student events, including events hosted by clubs and organizations. There you’ll find a description of the event as well as the Google Meet or Zoom links for the event.
Don’t have the UArts App? You can download the UArts App by selecting one of these links:
After downloading the app, you will be prompted to enter your UArts email address, and then a verification code will be sent to your UArts email. Verification codes are valid for one hour (if you miss your code, you can generate a new verification code as needed). Enter the code, and then you’ll be registered as a user!
Keepin’ Up with Campus Life Emails
Every Monday throughout the fall semester, you’ll get an email in your inbox titled “Keepin’ Up with Campus Life.” There we will highlight all of the events happening that week, include links to registration forms and links to Zoom or Google Meet sessions. We’ll also advertise various opportunities for you to get involved or calls for artists.
Social Media
Follow @UArts_CampusLife on Instagram for reminders of upcoming events, highlights of events and more!
The Campus Life team is full of staff that are passionate about creating a welcoming community for all UArts students and strive to make the experience outside of the classroom memorable and impactful.
Have a question about how to get involved, start a club or org, or want to pitch an idea for a program? Email campuslife@uarts.edu to set up a meeting to discuss it!
Get to know the team
Kristen Burkett
Senior Director for Student Engagement
Kaitlin Manion
New Student Programming Coordinator
Jheri Wills
Diversity and Inclusion Programming Coordinator
Ryan Hopely
Campus & Commuter Life Coordinator
The Office of Campus Life has a few types of student leader positions. Each position has different roles and responsibilities and offers their own unique and rewarding experiences. Below is an overview of the positions:
- Community Advisors (CA) work with the Pre-College program over the summer to host programs for Pre-College residents and ensure students have a safe and enjoyable summer.
- First Year Guides (FYG) welcome new students into the UArts Community at New Student Orientation and assist with First Year Programs and UArts Day.
- Resident Assistants (RA) RAs support students who live in the residence halls throughout the school year by providing them with programs to help build community.
- Peer Mentors (PM) serve as a resource for first semester, first year students and take them to events at UArts and around the city.
Community Assistant
Community Assistants are student live-in staff members who serve as liaisons and resources within the campus community for the Pre-College students. The Community Assistant works with their residents and other residential staff members to create an environment in the residence halls that contributes to the social and cultural development of the members of the Pre-College community.
Hiring Process
Applications for the Community Assistant position are made available in early November and are emailed to students. In order to apply for the position, all applicants are required to attend an information session. Please see the Student Activities calendar for dates or email reslife@uarts.edu with questions.
First Year Guide
First Year Guides (FYGs) are responsible for helping to welcome our new students every year at Orientation. They are assigned a group of new students at the start of Orientation and it is their role to help ensure that these new students feel welcomed and get connected on campus. They reach out to their group throughout the semester and participate in First Year Student programming, as well as serve as UArts Day leaders and help to make UArts Day a success!
Hiring Process
The FYG application becomes available in the beginning of the spring semester and requires two references from staff, faculty, or other student leaders. Students will be emailed from Campus Life with the position description and application link. All qualified applicants are required to attend a group interview day in March as well as individual interviews. All applicants will be notified if they have been selected to serve as a FYG via email by the end of March. If you have any questions or want to learn more, please email campuslife@uarts.edu.
Resident Assistant
Resident Assistants (RAs) are student live-in staff members who facilitate the development of the residence community, support the development of individual students, uphold the Code of Conduct, take a proactive role in maintaining safe residential facilities, take a broader leadership role within the University, participate in staff development and training, and perform administrative duties.
RAs positively shape the UArts’ on-campus living experience, while also enhancing their own leadership skills (including time management, interpersonal communication, budgeting, public speaking, and conflict mediation). Few campus employment opportunities provide students with the scope and depth of this position; RAs must be prepared for an incredibly rewarding and challenging experience where they can impact the lives of many students.
In line with these expectations, RAs' primary responsibilities are to build community among their residents and serve as a resource to the students living in their communities and in their residence hall. The residence life program depends on the strong performance of each staff member’s responsibilities and support of the overall team.
Hiring Process
Applications for the Resident Assistant position are made available in early November and are emailed to students. In order to apply for the position, all applicants are required to attend an information session. Please see the Student Activities calendar for dates or email reslife@uarts.edu with questions.
Peer Mentor
Peer Mentors are matched with two to three new first year students and serve as their mentor for their first semester at UArts. Mentors serve as a resource to their mentees, help to introduce their mentees to UArts and the Philadelphia community, and give mentees advice on how to navigate the university successfully.
Peer Mentors are required to take their mentees to various campus events to help their mentees get introduced to various aspects of life on campus and participate in programming exclusively designed for the Peer Mentor program. In addition, mentors will be given a stipend to do individual or small group activities with their mentee group!
Application Process
Interested in becoming a Peer Mentor? You must have completed Emerging Leaders or be a First Year Guide, Resident Assistant or Community Assistant to qualify to apply. Applications are made available in March every spring semester. If you have any questions or want to learn more, please email campuslife@uarts.edu.
