Student-run programs add positions for winter semester
SCA adds paid positions to winter semester staff

by Walter Cooley
COO99031@BYUI.EDU
Scroll Staff

SCA Production Director Jacob Curtis, center, a junior from Broken Arrow, Okla.; Assistant Production Director Natalie Hawks, back, a junior from Ogden Utah; Senor Designers Spencer Marshall, left, a junior from Cary, N. C.; and Arlo Vance, right, a freshman from Littleton, Colo.; go over the schedule for the day. ALLEN SANGSTER / Scroll

“As we looked at the agency at the end of the semester, we felt we needed to broaden the leadership base,” Michael Cannon, faculty adviser for the SCA, said.

The four new students and the positions are as follows: Jacob Curtis, a senior from Broken Arrow, Okla., as publicity director; Natalie Hawks, a junior from Ogden, Utah, as office manager; Nick Johnson, a senior from Idaho Falls, as multimedia director; and Megan Perkins, a junior from Turlock, Calif., as publicity director.

This semester marks the second semester of operation for the SCA. All of the new directors had experience within the SCA last semester.

“With the directors the way they were before, there wasn’t the means to meet the objective,” Curtis said.

The new changes will enable SCA to avoid drastic turnover in leadership personnel as students graduate, Cannon said. The SCA also hopes the new structure will help students maintain greater continuity with the Activities Program and spread the workload among students more efficiently.

“It is a win-win situation [for the student directors]; they get hands-on experience, credit and employment,” Cannon said.

The SCA directors learned last semester that structure and order have a purpose Cannon said. He said that order doesn’t stifle creativity, but actually focuses and channels it.

He also said the returning directors will be able to teach the skills they learned last semester to the new directors and students. These skills include delegation, follow-up, and a greater understanding of how others see things, Cannon said.

The new changes will ultimately help the SCA use other people’s time more effectively, Ben Sweat, a senior from Idaho Falls and returning SCA creative director, said.

“Last semester we had creative ideas and students, but we were getting stuck in production,” Sweat said.

SCA members said they hope the production director addition will ease that bottleneck.

Curtis will track projects, organize deadlines and handle production-related problems. Hawks will work as the assistant production manager. Johnson will supervise the SCA’s Web and video projects. Perkins will monitor and assist with the quality of projects produced.

SCA is an interdisciplinary effort, entirely run by students, to produce advertising, designs and publicity for the BYU-Idaho Activities Program.

Art, business and communication students apply their talents and classroom knowledge to projects they design and produce exclusively. The students log four hours a week between class and projects and receive one credit. The SCA expects approximately 60 students to participate in the agency in the current semester.

This type of hands-on experience is too valuable to pass over, Perkins said.

“It is difficult to recall the information [learned in class] when you get a job, so we are learning by doing,” Perkins said.

Bonnie Bronson, a senior from Pleasant Grove, Utah, will return as art director; Candis Schow, a junior from Malad City, Idaho, will remain as content director; Spencer Marshall, a junior from Cary, N.C., returns as design leader; and Arlo Vance, a freshman from Littleton, Colo., will be a new design leader this semester.

The addition of the new directors will allow the returning directors to spend more time training their students, Bronson said.