Long before the day begins at Lehigh, cellphones and laptops light up with a familiar notification: an email from Lehigh’s University Announcements.
By the time students wake up, the daily automatic message waits in their inboxes, offering a rundown of the events and announcements for that day. Club meetings, speakers, fairs and more are broadcasted to all of campus.
How announcements are chosen to be on the email is a different story.
Since 2010, Lehigh students have utilized the Lehigh Involvement Connection platform (LINC). LINC is a virtual campus hub that allows students to upload their events — both for administrative approval and advertisement.
The website intends to make information on 200 clubs and daily events accessible to students. It’s supposed to provide space for student leaders to organize their events and coordinate with Lehigh administrators.
Yet, in recent years, faculty and students felt that the platform no longer suited their needs.
Carol Hill, director of Student Center Operations, said the lack of features and increasing cost of the platform had the Student Affairs Office looking for new options.
For AI Club Vice President Avneet Kaur, ‘28, LINC was less of a hub for her campus involvement and more of a place to complete forms.
Kaur said LINC was a step in the process of event planning rather than a main tool.
“I was mostly responsible for booking rooms, so I did have to go through LINC, unfortunately,” Kaur said. “It was super stressful (when using LINC).”
Sara Runyon, assistant dean and director for Student Involvement, said she believes the outdated technology of the platform had illogical processes. The user interface presented a tedious process for students to fulfill a simple club event request.
Runyon acknowledges the effort student leaders put into clubs and organizations, and wanted to find ways to make their jobs easier.
Lehigh’s Student Affairs Office knew LINC needed a facelift.
Nick Christy, associate director of Student Center Operations, said Lehigh’s contract with LINC’s previous platform, Anthology, ended in July.
For LINC’s rebrand, the Student Affairs Office switched to a platform called Campus Groups.
With the switch in LINC’s programming also came a shift in how big a role it plays on campus.
On Aug. 3, LINC’s new website went live for students.
Kaur said she loves the new features of the website. For event planning, club organizers can book rooms, track attendance, fundraise and create email lists, all within the LINC website.
Another new feature is the ability to create inventories for managing and tracking club assets. The inventories are tied to an embedded check-in and check-out system, where students can assign QR codes to items in their storage.
“I really appreciated the efforts (the Student Affairs Office) are putting in to make it easier for us officers,” Kaur said. “Now LINC has more useful features so we see ourselves using it more, as opposed to before.”
Christy overviewed LINC’s new features at a student officer training, for student leaders to learn about the new platform. After attending Christy’s officer training for the new LINC, Kaur said she was able to fully understand how the system works.
Brooke Novotnak Miers, associate director of Campus Engagement and Student Organizations, said she believes the most useful new tool is the website creator within LINC.
With LINC’s new platform, club executive board members can create their own domains at no extra cost.
“The interface is much more user-friendly and intuitive,” Christy said. “We’ve really tried to be intentional about putting the resources that student clubs and organizations are using the most, front and center. We don’t want you to have to go on a wild goose hunt.”
The consolidation of LINC has made it easier for Kaur to find the groups she’s a part of in one place. She said consolidation will especially be useful for first-year students joining organizations.
According to Hill, since its launch on Aug. 3, over 600 events have been requested on LINC’s new platform.
On the administrative side, the Student Affairs Office is now able to track new information on events being hosted at Lehigh.
“There’s really beautiful and thorough reporting opportunities in this system,” Runyon said. “We really have a much stronger understanding of the vibrancy of our campus life.”
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