Gaming Night Extravaganza: Freedom to Learn

From TechSource Gaming Symposium

Presenters: Ian Crone, Donna Goodwyn, Kyle Jones, Jessica Weber (Elmhurst College)

Description: Gaming nights do more than provide social outlets for students, they provide learning opportunities once not envisioned by the usual players. The library and the departments of academic and student affairs have some differing philosophies of learning. While they both share the goal to promote student learning, they tend to go about it in different ways. By engaging student organizations in social events like “Gaming Night Extravaganzas” within the library, powerful partnerships form between student affairs and academic affairs that lead to great impacts on students’ learning.

The inherent organizational requirements created by gaming events are complex; not only do they have vast technical requirements, they also necessitate close departmental support. Only through the relationships built between the library, student organization(s), and student affairs, can such events succeed. Beyond the cohesive team that was built through these “extravaganzas,” individual students were given real-life opportunities to be leaders of a complex event. The skills they learned encompassed applying for financial resources and budgeting, organizational planning, public relations, and marketing.

Through the assessment of the gaming events, event organizers of the library, academic affairs, and G.E.E.C (Gaming Elite of Elmhurst College) came to the conclusion that only through well-developed partnerships and institutional support in the college setting can such events succeed and continue to flourish as each new year of officers of the student gaming organization take on the responsibility of leading future events with the support of the library and student affairs.

Intended Audiences:

• Academic librarians
• Administrators and others who hold the purse strings
• Technology librarians
• Youth librarians

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• Academic libraries

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