By Megan Happel
Published April 11, 2022
In the Spring of 2021, I was elected to be vice president of the Society for Technical Communication: Student Chapter at Michigan Tech. However, when it came time for students to return to face-to-face instruction, complications surrounding the pandemic resulted in the elected president not returning to campus. In response to this, I assumed the position of club president and quickly had to learn how to safely and successfully lead a group of people during a pandemic.
Anticipating future lockdowns and absences due to COVID-19, the first thing I did as president was establish weekly video conferencing meetings instead of face-to-face meetings. Unfortunately, it became evident that the motivation levels of the club as a whole were very low due to what was happening in the world. Seeing this, and not having many opportunities to host events or take on projects anyway, I ensured that the Fall of 2021 semester was mainly focused on building a sense of community among a group of virtual strangers. During this time, we grew closer as friends. We also grew bigger through recruitment efforts. One member even stepped up and created a club Discord server to enable efficient asynchronous communication among members, both old and new. It was there that I began relaying opportunities to club members between meetings.
By Spring of 2022, our motivation started to return. With a reduced credit load in my final semester, I had a lot more time and energy to devote to the club. I’ve always made it clear that the club experience is tailored to each individual member, and it was around this time that we each started to remember what we were passionate about. I connected some members with writing, graphic design, and web design projects, but others took initiative for projects related to film, editing, and photography on their own.
Our first major event since the start of the pandemic stemmed from an idea I had while watching my club members interact with each other. As STC majors, we were all required to curate our work in online project portfolios before we graduated. However, many of us were struggling to come up with visual aids for our portfolio pieces, as we hardly ever took photos of ourselves, especially while working on projects. Throughout January, I conceptualized and executed an event called “Awkward Photoshoot Day” in collaboration with the MTU Photography Club. This event, which was opened up to all students on campus, offered students free professional headshots and staged working photos from a variety of different camera models and locations. During this event, one of my club members even produced a mini documentary called “Awkward Photoshoot Day 2022” to immortalize our hard work.
Another key component of this semester was the creation of an STC club website that would feature all of the interesting projects and events the STC club hosted in the future. I worked on this project in collaboration with two other members, and it was built with room to grow with future iterations of the club.
As I inch closer to my graduation date, I find myself even more confident in my ability to lead and collaborate with people in an online setting. I hope to work remotely after leaving Michigan Tech, and am sure that these skills will carry into any career I find myself in.
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