Reality of Student Engagement at CBU

Everyone complains about the fact that there is not much to do in Cape Breton, especially in winters.Due to issues with the transit, students are unable to explore places around and outside Cape Breton.

Just when the students were done with the midterms, CBU Students’ Union planned an excursion to Halifax for the students and to support the Caper’s Men’s and Women’s Basketball team at the AUS Basketball Championship.

https://www.facebook.com/cbusu.ca/photos/gm.787611505079362/2975763312442943/?type=3

The trip was priced at 40 CAD per student, which not only included tickets back and forth to CBU, but also included tickets to all CBU games and snacks and swag for those who sign up for the event.

Usually it costs around 120 CAD for a student to take a bus or a shuttle service to go to Halifax. For the price of 40 CAD, this wasn’t a bad deal for a perfect weekend gateway.

The staff member at Caper Times and a student at CBU was eager to buy tickets for the same as soon as possible, thinking that the tickets would be sold very soon. Everyone was notified via social media accounts about the event more than a week before.

Although there were limited seats for the event, It comes to our notice that only 41 students signed up and out of that 35 students actually paid for the tickets and went for the excursion.With a student population of around 5000 students, this is not even 1% student engagement.

Even in the recent CBUSU elections, all the candidate slates had one agenda in common i.e to promote student life in various aspects.

So, is it worthwhile to organise events to promote student life, when the students themselves don’t want to enrich their student life experience.