Student Volunteers

The conference will go much smoother if you have student volunteers to help. Every conference will be different, but you’ll likely need volunteers to help in the following areas:
• Stuffing packets before the conference
• Greeting folks and providing directions
• Helping folks with AV equipment during the individual sessions (CS-types are often reluctant to admit it, but they often need help with equipment.) Enlisting the assistance of Media Services in advance is helpful.
• Assisting with registration
• Assisting with vendor setup
• Collecting meal tickets
• Hosting the pizza party
• Helping with the programming contests (You’ll need at least four runners to help out.) It is useful to ask the IT department to have one of their staff on duty during the contest.
• Gofers for last minute errands, etc.
• Taking photographs of various activities for subsequent publicity, etc.
It is a nice gesture to invite all of your student workers to the pizza party, not just those hosting it. Aim for about a dozen volunteers so none of them will have to put in long shifts. Work out your schedules in advance. Some chairs resort to awarding “extra points” to students in their classes if they volunteer or have the department purchase T-shirts. This is not CCSC money if you go this route.
Have volunteers wear some special clothing. It is possible to have tee-shirts printed specifically for the conference with appropriate logos, etc. Another approach is to purchase school shirts for everyone (usually from the bookstore) and “loan” students volunteer badges. (A set of “CCSCSE Volunteer” badges have been bought and these should pass from conference chair to conference chair for reuse.) Using stock shirts is generally much cheaper than having shirts printed—you can buy just what you need, you can swap shirts if the sizes are wrong, and you pick up additional shirts at the last minute if you have last-minute volunteers. And the student volunteers are left with a nicer shirt.

Deadline: 365 days before the conference.
Suggested starting date: 365 days before the conference.

Comments