Captain of the Actionby Anita Cirulis

Student Activities Director Lori Couch plans fun with a purpose

DAN ROSS

Lori Couch’s creativity provides students with events—like this year’s Clash of the Classes’ Slime Fight won by the seniors—that connect them to each other and Northwestern.

At the blast of an air horn, four teams of students—class affiliation indicated by the colors they’re wearing—race toward two stock tanks in the center of a playing field.

A red-clad freshman tosses a small plastic bucket to a teammate in one of the tanks who reaches down, scoops up liquid the consistency of weak rubber cement and hands it back. Carrying the precious cargo as it leaks out deliberately placed holes in the bucket’s bottom, the freshman sprints toward his team’s tank 80 yards away.

During the race, Lori Couch never stops moving. The director of student activities for Northwestern, she runs over to give advice to a referee, stops to remind a participant of the rules, and heads toward the seniors’ tank to check their progress.

Slime Fight—and the beginning-of-the-year Clash of the Classes competition it launches—is Couch’s brainchild and just one of 25 major events staged by the college’s Student Activities Council (SAC) each year.

Couch first heard about the powdery product that turns water into slime from a student who used it at summer camp, but as is typical for the event planner, she turned it into something bigger. “You’ve got to put something like that on steroids to make it really great,” she says.

Couch’s imagination and willingness to think big are what make her so good at her job. The first indication of her gift for student activities came when she was a resident director in Hospers Hall. Aiming to make a big splash with Hospers’ traditional Beach Bash, she turned the hall’s lounge into a giant sandbox using plastic sheeting and three truckloads of sand.

Hired to lead Northwestern’s student activities in 2001, she continued her “think big” approach, developing the Ballyhoo talent night, Senior Night with bingo, and a dodgeball tournament during Homecoming. There’s also NC/DC—a vocal competition with Dordt College based on TV’s American Idol—and Dancing With the Profs, modeled after the hit show Dancing With the Stars that pairs students with professors. For the latter event, Couch worked with faculty, getting art students to create the design elements for the contest and a PR class to come up with a marketing plan.

Wes Garcia, a member of the SAC leadership council, transferred to Northwestern from the University of California, Berkeley. “I got to see what activities at another school look like,” he says. “A lot of schools just bring in acts to put things on for students. Lori’s focus is using the talents of the students we have on campus. Students working with students builds community.”

Couch’s reluctance to purchase ready-made, for-hire events is due in part to budget constraints, but it also grows out of her philosophy of student development. She holds a master’s degree in higher education and can easily discuss the developmental theory behind the hilarious spectacles she orchestrates.

“There’s definitely a social element to student activities,” she says, “but beyond that, it’s about connecting to the college. It’s about connecting to your community—about forming relationships that cement you into an environment in a way that helps bring growth in all areas: academically, spiritually and socially.”

The need for a strong student activities program is especially important at a college in a small rural town. “If we didn’t have events—or only had a few events—I don’t know what students would do,” says Garcia. “Things close here at night, and the nearest cities are 45 to 75 minutes away.”

Couch created Clash of the Classes to fill the first weekend of the school year and help freshmen get to know upperclassmen. “I wanted to get them engaged with their peers and comfortable enough to ask questions in class,” she says. “The bonus has been the growth that’s happened with the other classes in terms of class unity and campus unity.”

Participation in student activities has also grown. Couch remembers her staff feeling thrilled when the former 200-seat Bogaard Theatre was nearly full for a Price Is Right game show. Now more than 1,000 students pack Christ Chapel and the Bultman Center gym for events.

“The expectations of the students have grown significantly over the years,” she says. “The hardest thing is staying fresh and ahead of the curve.”

To accomplish that, Couch is always surveying pop culture to see what can be incorporated into a student event. A Food Network show about bizarre foods led her to a California company that sells baked bugs—ideal for a Clash of the Classes challenge. Watching Diamond Vogel’s private jet fly over her backyard made her wonder if she could arrange a ride as a grand prize. (She could and did.)

“I always say to the students: I want you to dream and I want you to dream big—then I’m here to figure out if we can make it happen.”