The offices hope to create a more cohesive experience for students
Shortly after the beginning of the new academic school year, President Joseph Jones made an official announcement during the State of the University Address that the Office of Spiritual Formation and Athletics would be merging under Student Life.
“Effective this year, the Department of Athletics and Spiritual Formation will be reporting to Dale Scully in Student Life so there will be more co-curricular collaboration between those leaders,” Jones said.
The idea of merging the offices came about when it was realized that there was a lot of overlap in the work each office was doing individually. Once this realization was made, the offices began working together to figure out how they could create a more collaborative experience.
“Rather than having three different departments, with three different missions and philosophies, we began to consider how we could pull them together so that we can do more work collaboratively,” Dale Scully, Vice President of Student Life, said.
The goal of this merger is to create a more cohesive connection between the co-curriculars offered on campus and to further allow for better collaboration between the offices. With these changes, there is a hope to create a better environment with more opportunities for students.
The goal of this merger is to create a more cohesive connection between the co-curriculars offered on campus and to further allow for better collaboration between the offices. With these changes, there is a hope to create a better environment with more opportunities for students.
“As we grow, we need for all of our programmatic responsibilities to be uniform. And through that we want to provide the students with the best experience they can have while here at FPU,” Angulus Wilson, University Pastor and Dean of Spiritual formation said.
Although OSF and Athletics will now be reporting directly to Student Life, the offices want to view it as working together rather than a fight for power.
“I don’t want anybody to think that Student Life is in any way shape or form going to usurp control over those things. We’re all going to work together and be more streamlined and systematic about how we do things,” Scully said.
In terms of how this change will directly affect students, the offices hope it will create a more cohesive experience where students have the opportunity to participate in co-curriculars, but also not have to worry about events overlapping one another as often.
“It’s always good when the student doesn’t have to make so many choices about co-curricular things. For example, one night, if I’m on the soccer team, and I want to go support the basketball game, I shouldn’t have to choose between that and Bible study, or a concert on The Green,” Wilson said.
Scully shared the same sentiment, stating that these changes will benefit all parties involved when planning and putting on events.
“I think the biggest thing that we’re hoping for is that we learn how to collaborate better as departments on key major events and make sure all three departments are equally engaged in order to make sure that our students are getting the best experience possible,” Scully said.
Although academics are at the forefront of the college experience, each of the offices hope that by creating a more cohesive experience, students will be more active participants in co-curricular activities that might help them learn important life skills.
“There’s growth, there’s development, there’s problem-solving, there’s learning to work as a team, all of those things that fortune 500 companies are looking for, and industries are looking for in terms of skills, and abilities. There’s tons of learning that happens in the co-curricular and that’s there to augment the academic experience and make it stronger,” Scully said.
All three departments will be working collectively on decisions, events and activities on campus and look forward to the ways this merger will benefit both the students and the workflow between offices.
Aaron Henderson, director of Athletics, was contacted for this story but was unavailable for comment.
