Let's Talk UNLV

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Well, we're here with another segment of Let's Talk UNLV with Danielle Cathy and Renee Watson.

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Danielle, how you been?

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I've been well. I can't complain.

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I know you've been going through it with, you know, COVID and all.

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So how are you?

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Just tell all my business.

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Well, the thing is, we're all going through it with chronic.

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You're right.

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Okay.

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Good clean up.

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I like that. Since we're all going through it, as Danielette said, yes, I'm recovering, but I feel good back at work, back in person at work. I was working remotely, but it was a beast. I mean, you know, just the fatigue and the body chills. It's not fun. And it happened around New Year's.

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Yeah.

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Yeah. So I hope it didn't set the tone, but right, but you know family is doing well. What about you? What's been new you started school? What's going on there pretty much? Just trying to get in the groove back into school I was very much so on vacation mode so now I'm switching back into school mode right now, okay? And just trying to stay focused staying busy. I don't believe you switch off cuz I saw you working through the break Right that was a light switch. Right. Right. I actually love my GA job right now.

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So to me, it's still fun. And then school is like the job job, like the hard work right now. Right, right, right, right.

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Spoken like a true champ.

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Thank you. I'll go with that.

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Well today, we're excited about a time to talk with our newly hired Jennifer Gray, the director for the Student Union Event Services. Welcome, Jennifer.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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Yeah, so tell us, you're in week what? Three, four, maybe less than that? I think technically this is week number four.

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Week number four, so wow, okay.

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And let us know, where did you come from? What role did you have with the employer that you had? Oh, of course.

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I most recently was the director for auxiliary services at the College of Southern Nevada here in Las Vegas. Okay.

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And the Student Union Event Services under Student Life?

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I think of it as the hub of our campus community, if you will, and we oversee the facility itself. We work with many partners to provide services to our students, our faculty, our staff, and our guests. And we also manage events for the college community as well as for the Las Vegas community. So there are two distinct arms, if you will, of the department and together we provide a clean, safe environment, a hub for students and employees to hang out and enjoy a meal, engage in activities, and then also we might even be helping you have your wedding on campus. There's a wide range of

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services that we offer. Excellent. Yeah, so it's crazy to hear that you guys actually help host events outside of UNLV. Do you, I know you're new here, but

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do you have any insight of how that started and what kind of events have happened with you guys?

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That is a great question, which is typically when I say that code for I don't know if I have a really good answer for you, Danielle.

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That's fair.

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I think that it started as an opportunity to try to serve our community, and that term community is broad. So we're here to serve our students, we're here to serve the employees, both faculty and staff. But as we think about a little broader and bigger picture, the local community in Las Vegas, and how can we become a destination for someone who might be considering Las Vegas, for example, to have a conference. And we provide a very large inventory of rooms. We have the residence halls that we can utilize for conference housing and camps in the summer. And we can also help with partnering across the campus facility space to help someone with an event and become a destination that maybe they hadn't actually considered. So I think that's how that started.

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Okay.

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So that sounds like a big operation. I mean, how many employees are we talking? How many student workers are we talking? Because that's a lot of moving parts to be able to provide the kind of clientele services that you described.

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Yes.

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I'm glad that you asked because I just was adding that up yesterday. Okay, and we have 33 full-time positions, we have a few graduate assistantship positions, and we have a large student team that ranges anywhere from 20 to 112. Wow, wow.

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And so this is a big operation with, if you will,

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many opportunities to participate depending on a student's interest and schedule. And I'm really proud of that, because I think getting the chance to work on campus and cultivate your skills while you're taking classes is something that I got to do when I was in college, and it served me very well. And so I'm really excited about the opportunity to continue to do that for our students.

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And so I know that many of the student workers have a background either in hospitality or business. I mean what kinds of experiences did they gain from working in the Student Union Event Services maybe than a different part of

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campus? I think that some of the ways that they can gain experience include probably first and foremost would be how to provide thoughtful referrals. We have a lot of students on our team who work at our information desk, and that is, you know, that's an important spot in the building. It could be the first person who greets you and smiles. It could be the person who helps you navigate the campus map, how to figure out, how do I get from here to the admissions office, for example, and I think that those are really important skills for a student to learn about how do I help give you a thoughtful referral, how do I not contribute to you know a perennial complaint of getting the runaround, and how do I connect with others on this you know campus to provide consistent service. So that's a skill that I think is really important that they would get working with us. I think a few others are the exposure to the business side of higher education. We have a student painting team, for example, and we have students who are accounting majors who work for our business manager, who are running reports, providing analysis, and gaining real experience, if you will, that they could take with them into their next job.

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Yeah, that's really exciting to hear for all those students and the employees that are involved with you guys. Do you guys have anything that you're looking forward to this coming year for spring 2022? And in addition to that, how has the rise in COVID cases as Dr. Watson and I touched on earlier affected your guys' work? Yes, that's a great question.

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I'm excited to tell you that as I take a look ahead to the semester, it's exciting to see and to hear and to feel the buzz. The Student Union has great energy, and it feels really great to see so many folks who are back on campus. I understand that last Tuesday, our first day of classes, was the most traffic we had had through the Student Union in a really long time. So I think everyone felt excited, maybe even a little bit relieved that that buzz was back. Tomorrow is our Student Spring Involvement Fair, which is very exciting. We're holding that outside, actually. That's one way that COVID has impacted things for us, but it's helping us to find creative ways to still provide services while managing the details of mitigating the pandemic. I think that what I noticed first and foremost was the amount of student organizations who are having their meetings again, who are gathering in the student union, all days of the week, the weekend, the evenings, and that makes it feel like that buzz is back as I had mentioned. Something that's coming up that's pretty interesting is the Stanley Cup is actually going to be here. So for any hockey fans who are listening, next week there is a sports research and innovation initiative happening that we're hosting in the NHL, and then the Stanley Cup is supposed to be here. So I'm very excited to check that out as a Pittsburgh Penguins fan for a long, long time growing up.

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Sounds good. So let's go back to some of the COVID-19 protocols. Most recently, I understand that the information booth is also, or information desk, not booth, correction. They're handling, or handing out, rather, the mask. I mean, how does that work? And tell me about that decision to use the information desk as a post to provide that service.

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handing out masks for all community members who are here at campus and come up to the desk and request one. And I think that that's a, it's a great idea for us to get to serve and provide a much needed resource, but also to bring folks back into the student union. I believe that that was something that came through our, I believe we have a, and I apologize if I get this wrong, it's an IMT, I believe, we have an incident management team who are handling a lot of our COVID response. And through that leadership, I think that they identified the student union as a key point. So I'm really excited that we were considered for that. And then our student staff who staffed the front desk, they are ready and they have a large supply of masks and it's been a really good experience for them to be able to help everybody who needs one.

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Well that's good to hear that the buzz is still there and that it seems like events are starting to pick up. So with that said I know you're new to this role.

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Oh, there are a lot of things. But when I thought a lot about, you know, coming back, so I previously worked at UNLV. I worked at UNLV for 13 years within housing and residential life and the Division of Student Affairs. So for me, a really exciting piece of this was the chance to come back. And I would consider UNLV to be the place where I've grown the most as a professional. And I get to come back in a way to serve the Division of Student Affairs and Student Life in a different way. And the Student Union itself is exciting to take on. If we, we've often talked about here that Student Affairs and Student Life is at the heartbeat of the campus and I think of the Student Union as that heartbeats home. And how can I create a space that feels like a community where everyone who comes in can feel welcomed and that they belong here? And how do I contribute to enhancing your experience at UNLV? That this is a place where you make memories. I think a lot about the time I spent in my own student union at my undergrad, which was at West Virginia University back east. And that was like my second home. So for students who live on campus and for students who travel back and forth to campus, this is a space that I want you to feel like it can be like a part of home. And that's what I'm excited to try to build.

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And so in this role, I know that you work with a lot of our business partners, and their success is our success, as I like to believe. What are you hoping to gain in doing this role with the business partners who have space in the student union?

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I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to work with them very collaboratively. I really don't think of our business partners as just a vendor. I think of them as my partner. And I would agree that their success is my success. And I look forward to new ideas, ways to make our space more engaging, ways to improve our services. And by working with our partners in a very collaborative way, I think I'll be able to help us get a goal to the next level, take an idea and bring it to fruition. Those are some of the things I'm excited about in working with our partners. And I think that they're just as much a part of our community. And they may technically get their paycheck from somewhere else, but together we make the student union feel like what we want it to feel like. And to me, that's really important.

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So in that, are there ways for students to give feedback regarding the service that our campus partners provide, be it the U.S. Bank or any of the food court restaurants or Starbucks? Starbucks, I know that students have concerns, and they're our best gauge of what is happening. Certainly, they don't just only serve the students, these business partners, they do serve faculty and staff, but we care so much about our students' experience. What are ways that students might be able to share with you what they're seeing, good, bad, or indifferent?

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There are a few ways, actually. One of the things I'm looking forward to bringing back is the guest satisfaction survey that we administer online. And one of the ideas that we've just developed, actually, in a different meeting was to have that survey available via an iPad at the InfoDesk. And there are a few different surveys that happen throughout the year that are administered by some of our partners in the building, for example, food service. UNLV Dining has a survey that they administer, I believe, twice a year. You might have to double check on that, but I think it's twice a year. But in addition to those kinds of online surveys, I would invite anyone who has an idea or who has feedback to simply provide it, and that could be directly to me, or that could be through the info desk, or through one of our team members in Student Union and Event Services. I think that as I, and hopefully you'll see me, I've been doing my best to get out every day at different times of the day and walk the building, talk to folks, make sure I'm stepping into the different office areas and talking to our partners. Just let me know. I think that that's one of the most important things I can do to establish that kind of credibility, is to just simply receive the feedback and work towards achieving those suggestions and to hear those, whether it's positive or constructive, to simply hear them.

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Yeah, that's always good to hear that we could offer any feedback and then see those changes be implemented. But on another note, just personally, I'm new here to UNLV and I love event planning myself, so I'd be curious to know, like, if I was interested in hosting an event and I wanted to come to you guys, what would that process look like

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getting that event in place? That's a great question. I think that the first place I would start is by working through our reservations team. And so depending upon the scale and the scope of the event that you're thinking of, it could be as simple as we're going to reserve a room and you would work through our reservations team to reserve that space and identify any needs that you might have, whether it's sound, if we are doing something via Google Meet or WebEx, and we have our event operations team also helping you to make that event successful and look great and the space looks great. And then if it's a little bit more than that, let's say it's in multiple spaces or it's over a couple days, we might even be working through an event coordinator to help you plan your event and to help you understand all the different resources that we have to make that event happen for you as you envision it. I was recently talking with someone about film production and how it's connected to events and that there's the event that happens as you work with us so that we can identify all the needs and manage your expectations and help you, you know, bring that event as close to the fruition as you had originally envisioned it. And then there's usually what happens on the day of. So sometimes there's an event that's planned to be outside and then the day of we find it's raining. So how do we bring that inside and how do we adapt and how do we act quickly using some creativity in all of our resources? So I think that depending again on the scale and scope.

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It would, yeah.

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I can totally attest to this because I'm not into event coordinating at all. I just have like, this is a general sketch of what I wanna do. And then once I put in this brief summary of what I want to do, all these questions start popping up. Do you want it four tables of eight? Do you want it just one king table of 12? Then you also factor in if you have catering, and then is it going to be catered outside or catered inside? And just all the different options. Well, you need parking, you know. So when we had one event and we had to add parking to make it very convenient for our external guests. And so I'm just saying, but Jennifer is right, that this group, they go through all of those details and make the process so seamless, and they take, you know, good care of you so that you can make sure that your event is stellar. So I can totally attest to that. So this might be a hardball question, but Jennifer, you're tough on this one. So I know that one of the concerns, right, right, one of the concerns, though, has often been regarding our homeless affiliate population, right? You know, we're an urban campus, and we understand that many of these individuals don't present any harm or threat, you know, to the community. But there are some examples that we've had in which it's been a concern because of either their presence or there might be some mental health issues, and we work very well with the University Police Services to provide referrals and other assistance. But I'm curious, in this role, what's going to be your approach to this matter, both ensuring that people are still treated as humans and they've had life stories and things have happened. Many of these folks are veterans and have served their country. So it's not an easy issue to solve. But we also, like I said, want to ensure that our campus is safe and that the students feel comfortable and families who are visiting and other guests because you serve so many people. What might be your approach to kind of looking at this issue maybe from a different lens, now being in this role, even though you were at UNLV for 13 years?

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I think you put it really well when you talked about how

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to balance who we are as human beings and treating each other with dignity and respect while also balancing what might be concerns from parents or prospective students and you know in case there's any kind of you know oh is there an emergency or an incident that happens and I have I've really given that a lot of thought even as I applied for this position and what I'm excited to share with you is that our facilities team our custodial team, our leadership in student life have really taken on more of a partner role to get to know our community members, to talk to them, to understand what their needs are, and also finding that the community members are holding each other accountable and they understand what our students role is here and in finding a sense of harmony they are looking out for each other. I've seen examples where they tell each other, hey put your mask on, you need to wear your mask when you're in here, we don't want any trouble, but also we're getting to know each other as more like one-to-one and just as you know fellow human beings and I think that if we can take that step and continue in that stride, we will be able to foster a mutual understanding, a mutual respect, and we'll be able to hold each other to these values. I think that any any kind of community that you enter into, it's important to understand and to share what are our values. And we find we have many of them in common. And how can we hold to that and take care of each other and hold each other to some accountability? So I'm excited to tell you that because I wasn't quite sure how that was going to go, but that's what I've seen so far in my time here.

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Yeah, I'm glad you brought that, and that's a very, very neat approach to look at this, of how we hold each other accountable and still recognizing the humanity, you know, and there are no borders, you know, to our campus. And so I think there's got to be some understanding there, but certainly not at the compromise of putting anyone in harm's way. And I do want to know, I do want to say that there are staff. So if students or faculty and staff ever come against any individual, whether they be homeless or not, that are acting inappropriately, not displaying any kind of respectful conduct, then there are staff that are there, and they should not approach these situations on their own. They should get someone involved to do that, because, like I said, everyone should report when they feel like the situation is either uncomfortable or it seems quite suspicious sometimes. And so we need to make sure that we don't put students in that position of handling the situations alone, because, you know, the building is open for a long time, right? And the hours of traffic, you know, kind of ebb and sway. I'm glad to know that your approach will still look at the humanity and care, but not forsaking any safety concerns.

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Yeah, thank you.

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That's really well said.

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So before we wrap up, I just wanted to make sure we covered everything you wanted to cover. So if there's anything you wanted to share about your new role or about the Student Union and Event Services. Please go ahead.

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Oh, well, thank you.

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Well, I am very excited to be here and to be a part of what I'm gonna frame as kind of the rebuilding of Student Union and Event Services coming hopefully out of the pandemic. And one of the things I would love to share is that we are looking to hire quite a few positions in our team. And so whether that is full time, part time, temporary, we, I would love to get the word out that we're hiring and that we are looking for folks to join us and join our team to provide an extremely impeccable level of service, but also to support our students and to support our community at UNLV. I see that as an important part of our role. So if you're looking, we're looking. Let me know.

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Oh, I do have a follow-up question for you because this department was actually one of the few I applied to for my graduate assistant positions.

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Okay.

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Yeah, so I would love for you to provide listeners and students with some insight about what kind of personnel you are looking for, like what kind of skill sets and personalities are you guys looking for in the Student

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Union and Event Services? We are, I'll start off with, we are shortly going to be launching our conference housing program where we will be looking for student staff to work with us to manage conferences and camps this summer and that is a live-in position in the residence halls and one that I think is it's a lot of fun but it's a lot of really good experience so whether you're hospitality major or student you're interested in student affairs student development these are really great opportunities to live in and get some real experience. We are also hiring for our custodial team. So whether that is day swing or night shift, we are looking for a few staff members to join us on our custodial team, which is an incredibly important and difficult job to keep our space safe and clean, that we are following all of the COVID protocols that are in place and that we are providing a friendly and welcoming environment. And we're also hiring for event coordinators and that includes a few student staff positions with our event assistants and reservation and scheduling team and our student staff facilities team. So those are all positions that we are either actively recruiting for or will be soon. And I think that, again, whether it's a kind of a student life perspective or hospitality, or you're just looking for work and a way to build up your resume, this is a really fun department, I think, to work in, and we could build something together.

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All right.

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Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for sharing. I know you're going to be a rock star in this new role. Thank you for coming back and giving UNLV another shot to be able to serve in this role. So, Danielle, what was your takeaway?

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My biggest takeaway is that I need to visit the Student Union.

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Get your mask!

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I mean, I have plenty of masks these days.

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Come and hang out and have a meal and meet your friends and hang out.

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Yes, and I'm looking forward to doing that. All my classes thus far have been remote, but we're supposed to shift to in-person sometime this semester, so I'll definitely be visiting the Student Union. It was great to hear that you guys welcome feedback because I'm always willing to give my opinion. And I'm very excited.

0:29:04
Thank you very much.

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Oh yeah, yeah. And thank you. And I'm very much so over COVID.

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I hear that. Well, I'm glad to hear that Conference of Services will pick back up. That's

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an element that we definitely missed having so many students and future prospective students, you know, on our campus and just experiencing all of it, all of its splendor. And so to be able to offer that in the summer is very exciting. I love working with the students in the student event services area because you can just see that they have a destination in mind. They are using this job for some, you know, big position, and they always come in with good ideas. And they're just a group that I love working with. And, again, I'm so glad to see and hear that, you know, in here that Jennifer is looking at how to work with the population that is experiencing housing insecurity. It is a concern of ours, but we also again don't want to underscore the piece of being mindful of their circumstances and finding a compassionate way, but not at of losing sight of the safety of our campus. So I think we're in good hands with Jennifer, and thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of KUNV Let's Talk UNLV. I'm my co-host Keith.

0:30:38
I'm Renee.

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Tune in next week, Wednesday at 12 on KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More. That's a wrap. That's a wrap. That's a wrap!

Transcribed with Cockatoo