Welcome Week Rep Applications Part Two: Faculty Reps
JEFF FERGUSON, MACINSIDERS. When you’re a new student to McMaster, Welcome Week is primarily about welcoming you to two new communities at Mac. Chiefly, it’s about welcoming you into your residence or off-campus community, but equally as important is welcoming you into your faculty. In fact, since you’ll be spending more than a few years with your faculty, it may even be more important. You do get a lot more exposure to your residence/SOCS reps over those nine crazy days, but working just as hard as them, right from move-in day, are your faculty reps.
Often numbering in the hundreds, faculty reps are charged with welcoming first-year students into the programs that they’ll be studying throughout their undergraduate years. It’s pivotal that you meet and greet the students who you’ll be learning and studying with over the next four years, and Tuesday’s Faculty Day and Thursday’s Faculty Night are those perfect opportunities. Did you have a lot of fun in your faculty activities during your Welcome Week? If not, would you like to help new first years have that fun? If so, you should definitely consider applying to be a faculty rep.
In total, faculty reps make up the bulk of McMaster’s Welcome Week Reps. In red jumpsuits are the Engineers; representing yellow is Nursing; sporting the blue overalls is Social Science; wearing a darker blue jumpsuit is Humanities; busting out the black lab coat is science; a light blue jumpsuit tells you that you’re in Health Science, white with crazy blue paint stains all over it Kinesiology, pimping out the green is Commerce, and Art Sci sports a very appealing dark grey.
Faculty reps have very different duties during Welcome Week than a Residence or SOCS rep, as the first-years only join them for two days. The following is a breakdown of the commitment you could expect were you a faculty rep:
Saturday, Sunday: Move-In. Faculty reps are dispersed amongst all twelve residences to assist with move-in for eight hours each day. A perfect opportunity to utilize those biceps you built up over the summer!
Monday: Faculties represent themselves with a bedracer during the massive event in the center of campus.
Faculty Day: This is your chance to shine! Each faculty engages their first-years in various activities from early in the morning to midway through the afternoon/ Some faculties set up inflatable obstacle courses, some have watermelon and paint fights --- in most cases, the first years have a blast.
Wednesday: Airbands, baby! Represent your faculty either onstage or off. Your faculty will probably have a presence at the PJ Parade, as well.
Thursday: Faculty Night! Unlike Faculty Day, you’ll be traveling off campus for this one. Whether you go to Playdium, a lake, a park, or what have you, this is your final chance to show the first-years that they picked an awesome faculty.
Friday/Saturday/Sunday: Your commitment after Thursday really depends on your faculty. Some faculties have a Friday activity, such as the Engineering bus pull, and some faculties send reps along with residences to participate in Saturday’s Shinerama.
The commitment may not be gargantuan, but there are still plenty of opportunities to have a lot of fun. As a Faculty Rep, you have plenty of chances to meet first-year students, help them meet each other, and the all-important engaging of first-years who are off on the sidelines being quiet (that is what being a rep is all about! Talking to the first-years who look like they’re shy, or maybe not having too much fun) --- and not just at faculty day and faculty night, either. Sunday’s carnival is a great chance for new students to first meet their faculty reps. Be ready to engage them from day one.
Many students rep for a residence in their second year, and then go on to become a faculty rep throughout their remaining Welcome Weeks. Similarly, some students become a faculty rep right away, and then give the res rep thing a try in later years. Like any other kind of rep, it doesn’t matter what year you’re in --- faculty reps come in all types of ages! No matter what year you’re in, you can tell the first-years “I’ve been in your shoes.”
So how do you become a faculty rep? Keep an eye on your faculty! Sometime in February, head to your faculty’s lounge or office, and make some inquiries. The audition process is different for every faculty, so it’s important to know what you have to do. Some faculties have interviews, some have group tryouts; some are more competitive than others. If you know any upper-year faculty reps, ask them!
Here’s the question of the day --- if you love Welcome Week a lot, and I mean a whole lot, can you be a residence AND a faculty rep? The simple answer: Yes! I’ve done double duty for the past three Welcome Weeks --- I can’t imagine sleeping in on any of the days! Not when there’s fun to be had. If your HPA and your faculty are cool with it, there’s no reason why you can’t be both.
What you end up doing is representing your residence all week, save for Faculty Day and Faculty Night, when you throw on your faculty’s colours and continue leading first years.
What does it take to be a faculty rep? Do you have to be loud and obnoxious? Absolutely not. All kinds of people make good reps. There are the loud ones, yes, but equally as important are the more laid back ones who can sit and have good conversations with the first years. As with any kind of rep --- Welcome Week is about the first-years. If you’re going to apply to any kind of rep position, make sure that you keep that in mind.
There are more parts in this series yet to come, so stay tuned!