SPB on hold; Student Affairs takes over events

Maryville College has put an indefinite pause on the Student Programming Board (SPB). Events previously curated, advertised and hosted by SPB will now fall under the Division of Student Affairs and be organized by the college’s Student Affairs department. 

“We’re not calling it the Student Programming Board anymore,” said Doniqua Chen (‘15), director of student involvement and leadership development. “We’ve paused their Instagram and had them revert to @MCSCOTSLIFE. It will be a place where stuff is posted for now, but we hope that in the next few months, we will start revisiting what a student event crew looks like. Will we call it the Student Programming Board? I don’t know.” 

According to Chen, the decision to disband SPB was driven by low levels of involvement, recruitment and retention after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We went from big groups of 30 and even having to cap the membership to 35 SPB members,” Chen said. “Pre COVID-19, we ranged between a good, faithful 12 or so.” 

Chen said that, after COVID-19, students became busy in a way they weren’t in 2019 and before. 

“This model that we as an institution were leaning on of student-led efforts, we were seeing that fall short,” Chen said. “Not necessarily due to students not having the ability or the skill, just the time. I was asking students to commit to two to three events a month, two weekly meetings and then homework outside of that.” 

During the summer of 2024, Vice President and Dean of Students Ben Stubbs joined Maryville College. From there, the decision was made to have a conversation with SPB students and official officers.

“The visual we gave them was like a sliding bar [from student to student affairs department],” Chen said. “If [one side has] student-led efforts – meaning they pick the day, they pick the time, they come up with the theme, the shopping, and the logistics of it all. We slid [to the other side], from student to department. What it means is that everything SPB would do in the spring, we are still doing, but making sure the responsibility is not entirely on the students.” 

However, there was a lot of pushback from students previously involved in SPB. 

“That first conversation with Student Affairs felt blindsiding and as if the decision to ‘pause’ SPB had largely been made before students entered the room,” SPB President Sami Sasinouski (‘26) said. “Leadership was experiencing some very big emotions. We felt extremely disappointed and unsupported because we had already spent weeks building events, collaborations and marketing plans for the spring when we were suddenly told at the end of November that SPB might be paused. 

“The meeting also felt one‑sided. We offered multiple restructuring ideas, but it often felt like those ideas were deflected rather than genuinely considered, which reinforced the sense that student voices were being sidelined in decisions about student programming. Since that first meeting, we have had more conversations and attempted to include the rest of the previous SPB team. Those later conversations have been much more respectful, and it has seemed like our opinions were being considered more intentionally.”

Chen maintains that the decision to indefinitely disband SPB was made with the students’ best interests in mind. 

“We’re not trying to take it away from students,” Chen said, explaining that the goal is to ensure events are put together and well attended without putting a burden of time and planning on the students.

SPB students recognize that SPB needed to change some things in order to benefit the student body and SPB members, but some believe that pausing SPB was not the way to do that. 

 “For the student body, removing student voices from student events damages trust and weakens the campus culture of student‑driven programming,” Sasinouski said. 

“For previous members of SPB, this decision can feel like it invalidates semesters of work, relationships and professional development, and it has already scattered some members who may not want to return, breaking the pipeline of experienced leaders.”

“I also think it takes away some autonomy from not only SPB but other clubs and organizations, because there is now a looming expectation to perform well every semester or risk getting “paused” by Student Affairs.

 “Despite the progress in our early conversations, most of our ideas were not followed through on. I’m not seeing any active restructuring of SPB, or at least I haven’t been invited to be involved if it is happening, which was a central part of our original conversations.” 

After the spring event calendar launched, Chen says that Student Affairs has lost interest from those who prefer events to be led by students. But they have retained some volunteer students as well. Student Affairs still meets with the past members of SPB who wish to remain involved with student events. 

Previous SPB members who want to stay involved are invited to a biweekly meeting with Chen and Bella Rossi, Sasinouski explained. “In these meetings, Don and Bella ask for our opinions on different aspects of events and who is available to help with certain programs. Student voices have not been completely removed, but it is difficult to say that our voices still carry the same weight under these circumstances.” 

In these meetings, students are allowed to help come up with themes for the spring fling, discuss possible bingo prizes, and help put an events calendar together. Students are still welcome to volunteer to work an event, but ultimately, the rest of the event responsibilities are up to Student Affairs. Chen’s hope is that this change will relieve the pressure on SPB members to put on and host events, and instead allow them to enjoy them alongside their friends and classmates. 

“If anything, the idea of being removed from planning makes it harder to enjoy events, because my enjoyment has always been tied to the pride of creating them and seeing studentshave a good time,” Sasinouski said. “I also no longer have the ability to share that experience with other SPB members, which has taken away a big part of what made those events meaningful for me.”