The student body at Stockton University has been very active with its over 250 student organizations, with events catered to every interest a student could have. There’s something happening every day on campus, and students are spoiled for choice when it comes to social, educational, and service opportunities.

However, this involvement and events are very different when it comes to the Atlantic City campus. In 2018, Stockton opened the new campus for students to take classes at the John F. Scarpa Academic, or dorm at either Parkview or Kesselman Hall, all while being able to experience life in the Atlantic City area.

As someone who lives in Atlantic City, it’s hard not to notice that on the Atlantic City campus, there are not as many opportunities to engage in student events as there are on the main campus. It’s more common for there to be smaller events sprinkled throughout the semester, with a few big events once every few weeks, like last week’s MisagoCon and Late Night Breakfast.

There are several factors that could be affecting the amount of events that are held on the AC campus, like students leaving campus over the weekend or students on Galloway not being used to taking the shuttle between Galloway and AC.

In my attempts to understand why there are fewer events and lower student involvement on the AC campus, I spoke to Erin Flynn, Assistant Director of Residential Life in Atlantic City, to see the perspective of event organizers on this issue.

During our interview, Flynn spoke about her experience moving from the Res Life office in Galloway to AC, and that despite the work being the same on both campuses, there were not as many clubs and activities on the AC campus.

“We try to make it as equal as we can,” Flynn said about creating enough events for the Atlantic City campus.

During our conversation, the topic shifted towards the different clubs on campus, and Flynn reflected on how some clubs could host more meetings on the Atlantic City campus. Since clubs very rarely meet on here, most student involvement shifts towards the main campus, meaning students who are looking to get involved have to shuttle over to the main campus in order to participate in these organizations.

When speaking about the kinds of events Residential Life wanted to continue running on the Atlantic City campus, Flynn spoke on the many advantages that it has to potentially boost student engagement. There are a lot of local restaurants close to the dorms representing different cultures, so student events can cater from restaurants like Sabor Latino II.

The AC campus does suffer from not having a lot of stores to buy fresh produce from, so one of Flynn’s proposals was to have a summer market for students staying on campus to get free ingredients to cook with. Events like this focus on making sure the students on campus are fed, which is a goal that Flynn strives for in a lot of AC events.

At the end of our interview, Flynn spoke about the importance of student feedback to understand the kinds of events that students want to attend.

“We are very feedback oriented… if you tell us what you want, we will try our best to work towards it,” Flynn said about hearing back from the students that live on the AC campus.

For the upcoming academic year, there should be a bigger push for getting students more comfortable with traveling to the AC campus for events and meetings. The students who live on campus could also benefit from having more social events and opportunities to serve the community, such as the annual Atlantic City Community Cleanup.

For anyone looking to suggest ideas for events they would like to see on the AC campus, they can reach out to Erin Flynn at Erin.Flynn@stockton.edu.