Over the summer, University of New Haven students received an email announcing the change of the “Office of Student Activities” to the “Center for Student Engagement, Leadership and Orientation.” CSELO (pronounced “see-low”) will replace the formerly known OSA, while expanding on the duties and responsibilities of the institution.
“We feel this title truly reflects our contributions to the campus community and the student experience,” the email read. “The change permits the alignment of titles with staff responsibilities and better reflects the responsibilities of the department.”
As indicated by Greg Overend, CSELO director, the duties of the office will be mostly the same, although this new title will better allow students to understand the role of the office on campus.
“There were some internal responsibility changes within the office, but the office itself will not change,” he says.
The change in title also allows the office to better deal with responsibility and issues as a whole. Each staff member will have an area that he/she will cover (i.e. Greek Life, events, orientation, programming, etc.) in order to have the maximum amount of efficiency in each area.
“I think it’s going to be a culture change,” Overend explained. “The upperclassmen know OSA and Freshmen only know CSELO, and I think they’ll identify more with engagement, leadership and orientation as a place to go.”
In terms of the duties of the office, there will not be any expansion in the near future. However, it is the goal of the staff to expand the “sphere of influence” CSELO has. Now that the duties are better aligned with the responsibilities, staff members are able to focus more on their specific areas.
Also, as of right now, there will not be any policy changes as a result of the name changes.
As the CSELO director, Overend oversees the implementation of the vision he and the staff designed and are continuously trying to make it as beneficial for students as possible as well as growing to fit a growing campus community.
“When I started, it was just me and a graduate assistant,” Overend says. “Now, 14 years later, we’re still doing student activities, but we’re doing so much more and the name change really reflects what we do as an office.”
Reception from students and faculty alike has been overwhelmingly positive, with the only issue being that the name is slightly longer than the previous. After the research was done, comparisons to other schools were made, and the whole staff was on board, the change was able to be put in motion and now UNH has the Center for Student Engagement, Leadership and Orientation.
