​Quasquicentennial – try saying that five times fast! During the 2024-2025 academic year, Elizabethtown College celebrated their 125th anniversary since its founding in 1899. We set out to create something truly special for our community: a celebration that honors our rich history while also embracing the many ways we will shape the future for generations to come.

Planning for the quasquicentennial began in 2022, when a committee was formed that brought together partners from across campus—student life, marketing, academic affairs, events, and even members of the graduating class of 2025. To address key areas in greater detail, subcommittees were created to provide targeted guidance. From the beginning, we knew we didn’t want to create entirely new events. Instead, our goal was to elevate existing traditions by using the resources we already had. With support from the scheduling office, the committee reviewed annual events and identified opportunities to enhance them in celebration of the 125th milestone. This became a yearlong series of celebrations, beginning with Convocation.

Posted by: Amanda Thwing

Being in a senior leadership position is often lonely. Despite all the direct reports, student staff and colleagues that you work with, it seems no one else manages the level of activities, at the detail you do, with the knowledge and challenges of all the staff, partners, and clients. You often feel weighed down with staffing issues and opportunities, client questions, requests for reports, the desire to streamline processes and procedures, and the directive to find new revenue. When talking to colleagues/peers, you start to share, looking for connection, support and empathy, but quickly stop when your colleague brings up their stress level. For you know you are not the only one feeling this way, you are not the only one working at both ends of the day to find a way to get everything done. But then the question arises, am I destined to feel alone in every leadership position from now on? Does anyone understand my stresses, anxieties, and successes?

This was me, 100%, 2 years ago. I was transitioning into the conference and events area and felt all of this with every fiber of my being. I often felt like a deer in the headlights. Since I was just learning the area, I decided, at the encouragement of a friend, to attend my first annual ACCED-I Conference. I was nervous and wondering if I had made a huge mistake in my current journey into conference and events. Leading up to the conference I remember the slurry of email, the mention of the 1st timer mentor and offers to help with various committees. I just remember thinking, did I just get myself into even more work!? I got to the conference, I registered and then I hid, telling myself that I can do this. As someone who prides themselves on being strong and able to push my comfort zone, I thought I had met my match, and yet, I didn’t understand why. Maybe because I felt like an outsider or imposter. Maybe because I had pushed my comfort level too much. Maybe because I knew for the first time in many years I was not one of the most knowledgeable in my area at my institution.

Posted By Theresa McMannus

When you were younger, did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up? I’m talking - really know. I mean, have a plan, kind of know. If you did, and you’re living the dream - congratulations! Or, maybe you thought you knew what you wanted to be and followed a path in that direction, but life took you on the scenic route. Maybe you didn’t have a clue and set out on life’s way until you’re up to your neck adulting. All are okay and since we all work for institutions of higher education - well, all routes were a learning experience. 

Me, I would classify myself as somewhere in the middle. I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but life took me down a side road. It later connected backup, but the lessons in between were enough to get me here. ​

Posted by: Samantha Crossley

Summer is the time of year when many individuals in our field have a real opportunity to shine. Students are gone, faculty have ended their semesters and are enjoying a well-deserved break, but event planners and conference staff? This is our moment to create a new hustle and bustle on our campus. Most traditional camps and conferences create that feeling in the short-term by filling our campuses for anywhere from one day and up to a week. But what if you had the opportunity to create that atmosphere and feeling on your campus all summer long?

We have managed to achieve this by partnering with a large corporate company who employs international students that come to work in the United States on a J-1 visa. These visas are for those who intend to participate in an approved program for the purpose of teaching, instructing, or lecturing, studying, observing, conducting research, consulting, demonstrating special skills, receiving training, or to receive graduate medical education or training.1 These participants, who we lovingly refer to as J-1s, live and eat on our campus within a few days following our College Commencement in May up to and through the beginning of August before our next academic year begins. For the summer of 2024, we had participants from thirteen different countries, ranging from Dominican Republic to Thailand to Kazakhstan.