By Hannah Citron / Full360 Reporter

Rewind to a beautiful sunny day in early May, and students at Delaware Valley University, emerging from the pressure of finals, have a big celebration to cap off the year.

It’s the Finals Bash, an annual event to celebrate and wind down with free food, games, prizes, and even an inflatable obstacle course. All of this, however, would not be possible without the months-long detailed planning by DelVal’s Coordinator of Student Activities, Alex Sutton.

“Finals Bash is our biggest event of the academic year,” Sutton said. “It’s basically an end of the year finals celebration.”

Planning for this event happens throughout the year, but Sutton doesn’t begin purchasing items for the event until the start of the Spring Semester. The Office of Student Involvement works alongside the Student Programming Board to bring this event to life every year.

“There was a lot of discussion and contention as to what we should have [for a theme],” she said, “I don’t like to recycle themes too closely to when they would have been.”

After the theme was chosen, plans immediately went into place on the food that would be served, the themed games that would be played, and the themed prizes that would be given out. A t-shirt design that fits the theme is also part of this pre-event process. Even after all this planning, everything would then need to be approved by the budget before anything could be actually made possible. Finals Bash will be staffed mostly by student workers and student volunteers, but Sutton will be right there the whole day to make sure everything runs smoothly.

“We’ll need to make probably several staffing lists for the event; one to help decorate, one to help with balloons, one during the event, and then one to help clean up.” Sutton said.

The medieval-themed Finals Bash will take place on Friday, May 2nd, and feature food from the Meat Wagon food truck.

Along with planning Finals Bash and Late Night Breakfast, Sutton is the advisor for the

Student Programming Board. She spends the entire year planning every event that takes place on Fridays and Saturdays.

“I require my entire event staff to be at least an hour early for events.” Sutton said. This requirement is important for ensuring the success of the event, no matter how small it may be.

“For an event like Bingo or Trivia in Moumgis, I like to be there an hour early to test the tech. It gives us plenty of time to troubleshoot and make sure everything is up and running.”

The work never stops for Sutton, as she is always planning ahead. “The day of an event, I’m usually doing tasks for events two or three weeks from now,” she said.

Justin Brouse, the Assistant Director of Student Involvement, spoke about the importance of Sutton’s role to the overall campus community.

“There is a very prevalent need for Campus Activities Professionals in higher education,” Brouse said. “When you look at data across the board for student involvement in general, students who tend to be involved in clubs and organizations on campuses tend to have higher GPAs and a higher persistence to graduation.”

This is a statistic that is also seen on DelVal’s campus.

“I think having someone there to help create community is really crucial,” Brouse said. “It also eliminates the barriers that some students face time wise or financially to allow them to have some self care and experience things they may not be able to otherwise.”

Student Programming Board events give all students an equal chance to grow and develop during their college career.

“My favorite part about my job is simply working with students,” Sutton said. “I have an amazing job where I get to work with people in their highlights. People love socializing, people love spending time together, people love taking nothing and making it into something. Watching students take an event they are really passionate about and put it on and everyone be happy is just sublime.”

Students can find the Student Programming Board’s events in multiple places including the monthly calendars spread around campus, the large semester-long calendar that should be in most dorm halls, and through the This Week At DelVal email.